ORLANDO, FLA. (WSVN) - There was a scare at a Disney park when a little boy passed out on a ride. Luckily for the boy, some good Samaritans performed a lifesaving act.
Ernesto Tagle Jr. and Christine Tagle already knew their 5-year-old son, Ernesto, was special.
“Full of life and full of energy, always, since he was in the womb,” Christine said.
Doctors confirmed it as well after they recently diagnosed him with a rare heart condition known as CVCT.
“When the heart is like beating too much, like he’ll go into an arrhythmia,” she said.
The family had no clue until they went on recent trip to Disney, where little Ernesto passed out mere seconds into the “Guardians of the Galaxy” roller coaster ride at Epcot.
“He’d ridden the ride before, so I really didn’t understand what was going on,” she said. “We had to complete the ride, like there’s no way to stop it or get off of it.”
Christine said that by then, she could barely make out a pulse.
“I was screaming,” she said. “He was sitting in front of me. I know that I was hitting him and just saying, ‘Something’s wrong, something’s wrong.'”
Christine said she started CPR after the ride.
A couple that passed by, who happened to be a nurse and an emergency medical technician, jumped in to help because Ernesto started having seizures.
A Disney employee grabbed an AED machine to shock his heart in order to get it beating again before he was taken to the hospital.
“We’re just glad everything worked the way it did, worked out the way it did,” the elder Ernesto said, “and we can’t thank the people that helped us enough.”
Little Ernesto has since had surgery to get a defibrillator, and thankfully, there was no neurological damage.
He used to play baseball, run and swim, but life is slower for now.
“Maybe 30 minutes from the hospital, he was like, ‘Can I go outside and play and ride my motorcycle?'” Ernesto said.
“Yeah, no,” Christine said.
His mom and dad said they are thankful that so many people were in the right place to help.
“Everyone knows his smile, and everybody knows his, like, just little full of life, and we just feel so lucky that this didn’t rob us of that,” Christine said.
The family was able to track down those who jumped in to help their son to thank them.
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