Brain injury changes lives of son, mother

Latisha Fields stands beside her son, Ellis Ray Tripp, who is recovering from an oxygen-deprivation injury.

It was a life-changing event for Ellis Ray Tripp, who was a vibrant and full of life 14-year old who loved hanging out with his friends, spending time with family and playing basketball.

Basically, he cut up all the time, dancing and playing around, said Shiwanna Henderson, a cousin who often visits with Ellis. He was very smart, and my kids are his age, so we spent a lot of time together.

On May 19, 2013, everything changed.

Ellis, or Ray, as called by his family and friends, wanted to play basketball, so together with some friends, they went to the park. They played one game and during the second game, as he went to retrieve the ball, Ray fell to the ground, said uncle Ronnie Fields.

Ellis was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a birth defect that affects normal blood flow to the heart. The condition occurs when a babys heart does not form correctly as the baby grows and develops in the mothers womb, according to the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC estimates that about 1,660 babies in the United States are born with Tetralogy of Fallot each year. The treatment is surgery shortly after birth, and in most cases the child will live an active and healthy life, but will need regular follow-up visits with a cardiologist.

Ellis had been living with his grandmother, Karen Fields, in the Rocky Run community of New Bern while his mother, Latisha Fields, attended law school at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, Fla. While playing basketball in May at the local neighborhood park, Ellis heart stopped.

The local volunteer fire and rescue department arrived and immediately began working on him. They used a defibrillator to try to shock his heart into restarting. The family said that a malfunction with the machine caused it to stop working.

A representative of the Rhems Volunteer Fire Department said there was no malfunction of the defibrillator. The machine is equipped with two batteries. Once the battery became low, it automatically switched to its secondary power source.EMTs from CarolinaEast Medical Center arrived shortly afterwards, and together the two teams worked together to do everything they could, said Ronnie Fields.

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Brain injury changes lives of son, mother