Callie Marie Mitchell, 16, was found unresponsive in her bed by a cheer coach at Texas A&M University. Her parents want to raise awareness of the undetected disease that likely led to her death.
A 16-year-old high school cheerleader died unexpectedly from cardiac arrest while away at camp, according to reports.
When Callie Marie Mitchell, who would have been a junior at Morton Ranch High School this fall, wouldn't get out of bed one morning while away at Texas A&M University cheerleading camp, a concerned coach called her parents, asking if she ever had trouble waking up, reports local news outlet KHOU.
After her parents, Michelle and Scott Donahue, told the coach "No, never," they immediately drove to the camp, Michelle told KHOU.
Once they arrived, Michelle told KHOU, they learned that the coach who had called them had performed CPR on Callie, after which she was transported to Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, where she died on Aug. 1.
"If it wasn't for [Coach] Eberly, we would have never had the chance to say goodbye," a heartbroken Michelle told the news outlet, adding that Callie "was like sunshine."
"[Callie] always wanted to be a friend to anyone and everyone," noted her father, according to People magazine.
Scott suspects Callie's cause of death was Long QT syndrome, he told KHOU, which, according to Mayo Clinic, "is a heart-signaling disorder that can cause fast, chaotic heartbeats (arrhythmias)."
In the wake of Callie's death, her parents want to spread awareness of the disease, which can easily go undetected during routine physicals.
"For any other parents out there, you know they do physicals every year ... EKGs are not part of a physical ... get an EKG," Scott told KHOU.
