Thirty Seconds on the Gymnasium Floor

Marcus DeLeon was seventeen years old when his heart stopped during the third quarter of a Friday night basketball game in Waco, Texas. He crumpled at the free-throw line like a marionette whose strings had been cut. The crowd went silent. Then the screaming started.

Coach Rivera didn't hesitate. She sprinted to the wall, yanked a white plastic box off its mount — an automated defibrillator most people walked past every day without a second glance — and knelt beside Marcus on the hardwood. She tore open his jersey, pressed two adhesive pads to his chest, and let the machine do what it was built to do.

The shock arched his back. One second. Two. Then a gasp. Then a pulse.

By the time the paramedics arrived, Marcus was breathing on his own, blinking up at the fluorescent lights, asking what happened.