Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:24 PM

Without Wes Leonard: Nearly a year since his death

There are days when Jocelyn Leonard thinks her son Wes is still alive. Maybe he's over at a friend's house. Maybe he's out lifting weights or shooting baskets. One more game, Mom, one more game; and she thinks, for one wonderful moment, that he will be right back.

Wes, give me your dirty clothes. Wes, get ready for school. Wes, what are you doing?

But then she stops herself. Her son has been dead for almost 11 months, and the pain and guilt are overwhelming. She blames herself for not noticing the subtle warning signs that her son was sick. She blames herself for not noticing that a device that could have saved her son -- an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) -- had been removed from the wall outside the Fennville High School gymnasium, where he played his last game. "I think I have double guilt in this," she says.

VIDEO: Wes Leonard's mother speaks

So she tries to stay busy, she needs to stay busy, volunteering to teach CPR classes, even if the emotional drain leaves her in a funk for days; helping to start a foundation to raise money to buy more AEDs, giving them to any school that wants one; lobbying for legislation that would make AEDs mandatory in Michigan high schools, and carrying around a portable AED in her van everywhere she goes, just to be safe.

If she can't save her son, she will save somebody else.

Confusion, mistakes

The scene was replayed so many times on national television that it is burned into memory: Wes Leonard, the star high school basketball player, was lifted into the air by his teammates after making a game-winning shot to give Fennville an undefeated season. But suddenly, Wes slipped out of their arms and suffered cardiac arrest.

But here is the part that has been lost: At first, nobody realized what was happening, and there were a series of mistakes.

"Everybody thought he was dehydrated or overheated," said Fennville Superintendent Dirk Weeldreyer.

Somebody went to get ice and cold cloths.

Wes gasped for air, which some thought was a good sign. But that is actually a warning sign, commonly seen in cardiac arrest. "That led to the confusion," Weeldreyer said. "People didn't recognize what was happening." Jocelyn screamed for the AED that she thought was on the wall. "I yelled for it because that's what you are trained to do," she says.

Jocelyn was trained in CPR. She had taught choir for six years at Fennville High in the music room across the hall from the gym. Day after day, year after year, she walked down the hallway past an AED fixed to the wall. She never noticed that it had been taken down.

"For every minute that the heart is stopped, it's 10% less likely that you will get the heart restarted," Jocelyn says. "So after 10 minutes, you don't have much of a chance."

Fennville principal Amber Lugten found the machine in a storage room and brought it out for Wes, 16. But the battery was dead. Ten minutes passed, and any hope of saving him was gone. Big Wes, the handsome, small-town hero, was dead.

"You are mad," Jocelyn Leonard says. "There is no one to blame. I've never blamed anyone. I'm just so sad about it. I'm sad that it's a $1,500 fix."

Lugten said the AED was taken down because kids would open the case as a prank, which caused a loud, distracting alarm. "We made a very poor decision to take it down," she said.

There was a working AED in a nearby building, but nobody thought to get it. "It probably would have taken three or four minutes to run there and get it," Weeldreyer said. "That's why we are trying to teach everybody these warning signs."

Searching for stories

The first few days were a blur. Jocelyn Leonard was numb with shock and grief as she planned the funeral. "I've sung at a lot of funerals," Jocelyn says. "I've planned a lot of things for a lot of people. And I wanted it to be special."

This was her last chance to honor her child. "I wanted to show them how great he was," she says.

Close friends and relatives put up a cocoon around the Leonards, as the national news media descended on Fennville, a one-high-school town with a population of about 1,400. ESPN was running hourly reports about the tragedy. But Jocelyn had no idea.

After taking a month off from teaching, Jocelyn returned to the classroom in April. "I came back for totally selfish reasons," she said. "I wanted to be here to hear stories about my son before those seniors graduated. I knew that if I was here and sat in lunch with them, that they would tell me stories. I treasure those stories."

Wes was a daredevil. He used to ride snowmobiles 110 m.p.h. or jump into a pond and catch snakes and let them bite him. He'd pick up snapping turtles, narrowly avoiding injury. "That's who he was," Jocelyn Leonard says. "He was going to be the next Crocodile Hunter, the next Steve Irwin."

Wes had a few symptoms of heart disease, but they were subtle. "He was dizzy once," Jocelyn says, "when he got off the couch and I said, 'I think you have been texting too long. I think that tells me you need to quit texting. Your eyes are down too long and you need to go eat a banana. Just make sure your potassium is good.'

"I didn't take him to the cardiologist. One of the signs is dizziness. I didn't know that."

Two weeks before he died, Wes took a nap on a Sunday, which was unusual. "Being tired is a warning sign," she says. "But who is not tired in the middle of an undefeated season? You are 16-0 at that point. That was my warning. That's all. That's it."

The autopsy report

Eleven weeks after Wes died, Jocelyn Leonard received the autopsy report, which revealed that her son had cardiomyopathy. The results were reviewed by several experts, and Jocelyn Leonard was told that both of his ventricles were damaged and his heart had turned fatty.

"They said that is unheard of, that your heart could survive that long and be damaged like that," she says. "My son had an enlarged heart, and he did the worst thing he could have done: He was a super athlete. If he had extra time, he did more push-ups and sit-ups. It's the worst thing you can do for a heart that is enlarged, to give it more physical activity."

Jocelyn was told that his heart could have been started again with a jolt from an AED. She tries to imagine how everything would have changed, if Wes had been saved. He probably would have needed a heart transplant and his athletic career would have been uncertain.

"He would have had to adjust," she says. "But he had so many other talents. He was an incredible artist."

Jocelyn Leonard said that her son's heart condition was genetic. But her only other child, Mitchell, a freshman at Fennville, does not show any signs of the disease. Mitchell is checked by a cardiologist every three months. "We know he's really healthy," Jocelyn says. "He's in the greatest position that we can have him in."

A passionate activist

Jocelyn has turned into a driven, passionate activist, able to spout statistics off the tip of her tongue: "For every 300 kids who walk into a high school, one of them has an enlarged heart. The leading killer of high school athletes is cardiac arrest. I did not know that."

Jocelyn Leonard and her husband, Gary Leonard, who declined to be interviewed for this story, have started the Wes Leonard Heart Team, a nonprofit organization.

"Why didn't anyone save my son?" Jocelyn Leonard asks. "Why didn't anyone do this for my kid?"

The heart team has given away 20 AEDs and is lobbying for legislation that would require every high school in Michigan to have an AED. "You have to legislate it," she says.

Since June 1, certified trainers from the Wes Leonard Heart Team have taught CPR and AED skills to 180 people.

Jocelyn Leonard has no medical background, but she went through training and is now one of the team's certified trainers. Sometimes, Jocelyn works with Maria Flores, another member of the heart team whose son was close to Wes.

"I'll break down and cry," Flores says, "and I'll say, 'Jocelyn you have to help me through this.' And then it clicks. My gosh. That's his mother. What am I doing to her? I'm the one asking for help, crying."

'He is remembered'

Jocelyn Leonard totes around a portable AED in her van and brings it into the house at night. "You might be somewhere in the country where there is a slow response time," she says. "You might as well bring it. We don't make a big deal about it."

If Mitchell sleeps over at a friend's house, she'll slip it into a bag. "He understands," Jocelyn Leonard says. "It might not be for you. It may be for the grandpa who is visiting for the birthday party. It probably won't be for you. We have it. It might as well go."

Mitchell has grown 4 inches since his brother died, and he made the varsity basketball team at Fennville.

"Every day, I walk around and see 'Never Forgotten,' " Mitchell says of the shirts that honor his brother. "I think it makes it easier. A lot of people ask if it makes it harder, seeing his name, but it lets me know he is remembered."

This was the year that Wes and Mitchell were supposed to be on varsity together. The senior and the freshman. But now, Jocelyn and Gary have to go into that gym, trying to cheer for one son while aching for the other.

On game day, Jocelyn wears buttons pinned to her shirt with pictures of both her sons. "Mitchell is seventh man now," Jocelyn Leonard says. "He would have been eighth. He would have seen time."

But she won't let him play unless there is an AED on the bench. "It's a prerequisite for me," Jocelyn Leonard says. "Mitchell will never play on a field or court unless there is one right there."

Glimpses of her son

Jocelyn Leonard had her whole life planned out, and it revolved around her kids. She planned to visit at least eight colleges with Wes this year, which would have been his senior year. "I really think he would have been a Division I football player," she says. "That was his passion. He has played with broken elbows and arms ripped out. And they almost won."

She smiles, full of pride, like it happened yesterday.

She sees her son's presence in the strangest of places.

When Mitchell was about to play his first varsity basketball game, Jocelyn was worried. She hopped into her van and glanced at the thermometer. It read 35 degrees. "That was Wes' number," she says.

After school, she got into the van again and it was still 35 degrees. "We are doing the right thing, right Wes?" she asked.

She got into the van to go to the game and there was the answer. The temperature was still 35 degrees. And she thought: "All right. He's supposed to play."

On the court again

Mitchell Leonard sits on the bench, as the announcer introduces the starting lineup before Fennville plays Saugatuck in early January.

Mitchell is the last one announced, just like Wes used to be the last player out of the locker room.

The meeting between the two rival teams is being called a "Red Out" basketball game, and all the proceeds are going to the Wes Leonard Heart Team. Hundreds of people in the crowd are wearing Wes Leonard shirts.

"It was kind of emotional," Mitchell says. "I'm really happy to play basketball against our rival. At the same time, I'm seeing my brother's shirts everywhere. It was bringing back everything."

Early in the game, Mitchell sprints down the court and banks a 3-pointer and the crowd erupts. "My hairs were sticking up," Mitchell says. "I was pretty freaked out."

Mitchell plays until he becomes exhausted and starts to suck air, getting chills to be "playing with the big boys," just being out there with his brother's teammates, the guys who treat him like a brother.

And his parents look down from the stands, and the fans in the crowd cheer with tears in their eyes -- another Leonard playing in the same gym where this tragedy began, and outside the gym, on the wall, there is a brand new AED, and inside the gymnasium, on the Fennville bench, out of sight, but within reach, there is another one, a portable defibrillator in a yellow case.

The community reacts

Six-year-old Nathan Griffin watched his favorite player die.

Nathan was in the bleachers at Fennville High School on March 3 when Wes Leonard collapsed and died of cardiac arrest.

Ten months later, Nathan doesn't like to be alone and has a hard time sleeping in his own bed. For Christmas, Nathan asked Santa for money to donate to the Wes Leonard Heart Team, a nonprofit organization started by Wes' parents, Jocelyn and Gary Leonard.

On a warm January night in Fennville, Nathan stood in a hallway at the high school and handed an envelope to Jocelyn Leonard.

She read the letter to Santa and pulled out a $100 bill for the heart team. Half the money came from Nathan and the other half from his older brother Braden Griffin, 11.

"I think you wrote this, didn't you?" Jocelyn Leonard said to Nathan. "That is so nice of you. I think that deserves a hug."

She bent down and wrapped her arms around Nathan.

"I'm helping people save other kids who had what Wes had," Nathan said.

On the surface, Fennville has returned to normal. Ten months ago, it seemed as if every store in town displayed a sign or poster that honored Wes. Many included 35 -- his basketball number -- but those signs and posters are gone now. Still, that number has grown to represent something larger to his friends and family, to little kids who didn't even know him that well.

"Yes, the signs are down now," said Maria Flores, who is on the heart team. "But I don't think the community will ever forget Wes. Like everybody says, coming into Fennville, the speed limit changes to 35. That was Wes' basketball number. Everybody will always remember that. You have to slow your speed down to 35, and there is Wes."

He is still there -- in that letter to Santa, and in the eyes of his grieving coach, and in a room stocked with Wes Leonard T-shirts, and in a sunset that changed a life.

'It's changed me'

Fennville basketball coach Ryan Klingler walks around feeling physical pain. Like somebody dug into his body and ripped out a chunk of his heart. He was extremely close to Wes, his star player.

"To tell you the truth, I don't know if I ever did crash," said Klingler, 34. "I'm not sure if it's ended yet, or if it has sunk in, or if I've dealt with some of it."

Klingler was the public face of the tragedy, holding the team together after Wes died. The story became national news, and Klingler was the one who was seen, day after day, on ESPN, handling most of the media interviews and post-game news conferences.

But this year, Klingler doesn't get nervous before games, and the wins and losses don't seem to matter as much. "It's definitely changed me as a person," he said.

The loss of Wes has changed the way Klingler coaches. He has become more cautious.

"If a kid doesn't feel well, I need them to sit out," he said. "If you feel like something is wrong, take a break. That's definitely changed. I think it's really important that coaches really listen to the kids."

Last year, the basketball team's focus was to be "uncommon."

This year, Fennville's focus is to have fun. "We are big on having fun and enjoying," Klingler said. "High school athletics is one of the greatest things a kid can experience. A lot of our guys need to know that they can enjoy it and have fun. I love to see smiles on kids' faces. I hate when they get down."

The tragedy has pulled together the Leonard family and the coach.

Jocelyn Leonard considers Klingler -- Coach K, as she calls him -- her third son. She worries about him, making him supper if he hasn't eaten, even if she puts it in a to-go box.

Klingler calls the Leonard family "one of the most unique and caring families that I've gotten to know in my 20 years around athletics. They are amazing. They truly care about people."

'Wes was first class'

Flores' son, Xavier Grigg, was one of Wes' best friends.

"He'd come and drink all my chocolate milk," Flores said. "He'd eat all the cereal and snacks. I don't know. I miss him. It's a terrible loss."

Flores was hit by a drunken driver in 2010. Her neck was broken and she had three surgeries. "I'd lay in bed and think, 'What am I going to do with myself?'

"I can't work. I'm in pain. I remember thinking, 'I'm going to hurt for the rest of my life.' "

Jocelyn Leonard asked Flores to join the heart team because she was so close to Wes.

Flores says the experience has changed her profoundly. Being on the heart team has given her a purpose. She says she feels as if life is worth living and she is doing something to be proud of.

"I'm going to have pain no matter what I do," Flores said. "I might as well get out of that bed and do something with my time. That's where I get my drive."

Flores is still recovering, still in constant pain. "It's usually a six on a scale of one to 10," she said. "It's worse at night."

A room in her house has been turned into something that could be called the Wes Leonard Heart Team store. It's filled with merchandise, including Wes Leonard T-shirts, sweatshirts, two different types of hats, coffee mugs, baby clothes, key chains, wristbands, water bottles and lanyards.

Flores takes orders online -- "cash, checks or credit card," she said -- and then she mails everything out. She urged a reporter to come to her house. "We want to be transparent with everything," she said. "All of the money goes to buying AEDs" -- automated external defibrillators.

The walls of the room are decorated with several pictures of Wes.

"Wes was first class," she said. "He did everything the right way. So that's why this has to be first class."

From time to time, Flores goes to the cemetery, on the edge of town, where Wes is buried.

"You'd be amazed at the things dropped off there -- basketballs and footballs," she said. "Kids sign them and leave them. Notes. Flowers. There is just tons of stuff."

She goes and cleans up the area. To make sure it stays first class.

'We are now closer'

Tobias Hutchins, who calls himself "the weird awkward kid who doesn't play football or basketball, but is friends with the guys on the team," was in the student section when Wes died.

"That night was a huge event, like Super Bowl weekend," said Hutchins, 19, now a freshman at Grand Valley State University. "Everybody was going to the game. Just about the entire community was there."

The day after Wes died, about 50 classmates showed up at Hutchins' house, and they grieved together. "We all had to cope together," he said. "We just sat there and watched the footage."

Hutchins used to sit with Wes at lunch almost every day with a group of friends. Then again, Wes sat with just about everybody. He would bounce from table to table, and talk and talk, so genuine with everybody, never acting better than anybody.

Hutchins said the tragedy brought his classmates together, as well as the entire community. Hundreds went to the visitation and the funeral.

"We were always a close community, but we are now closer," he said. "We all knew Wes somewhat personally. It gives us a purpose to tell people why Wes was special and what he stood for. That's a powerful thing for a community."

Hutchins is studying music education, economics and political science, and he wants to go into politics.

"I believe so much in community now," Hutchins said. "The power of people is incredible. It's changed my philosophy. I want to go into politics to articulate that the power of the people can pull you through anything."

Hutchins, who was last year's senior class president at Fennville, was asked to join the heart team after he graduated. He updates the website and handles the social media.

After Fennville was knocked out of the state tournament, Hutchins was driving a 1998 Oldsmobile Regency back to Fennville with a carload of friends when he saw something that changed his life.

"The sky was the most unbelievable, gorgeous, glorious thing you've ever seen in your life," Hutchins said. "Right then, I knew Wes was up there. There were all these cars in a line heading back to Fennville. And right then, I knew everything was going to be all right. It was peaceful."

The moment awoke a spirituality in Hutchins that he had never experienced.

"Now," he said, "I definitely believe."