Daniel Evangelista returned to classes at Blessed Trinity High School just 10 weeks after his collapse on the football practice field sent him to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for emergency brain surgery.
“I remembered I was at a football practice. I had a really bad headache. But I don’t remember like right after that,” he told Rough Draft about that day in October.
He later learned he had run off the field, threw up, and had to be helped to a bench by a friend before he passed out.
When his mother, Mary Ellen Evangelista, got the call that he had collapsed, she insisted that an ambulance take him to Children’s. She got to the high school from Sandy Springs before the ambulance, and when it finally arrived it took 45 minutes to get to the hospital.
Daniel’s father, Drew Evangelista was in Houston, Texas, for work. He couldn’t get a flight back home until the next day. He hoped that his son was just suffering from a severe migraine. But he was on the phone when the surgeon said Daniel needed surgery immediately, and they weren’t sure he would survive the operation.
Dr. William Boydston, a Children’s neurosurgeon, performed the delicate surgery to release the pressure in Daniel’s head and remove one of the two brain bleeds/blood clots. Those resulted from arteriovenous malformation (AVM), an abnormal tangle of blood vessels, according to Children’s.
Coaches and friends came to the hospital to support the family and await the news. Daniel’s brother borrowed a car and drove from college to be with him, arriving at 2 a.m., knowing he’d have to drive back to college that same morning.
Mary Ellen said the hospital chaplain was amazing as he kept going to the OR to get updates. A group of people including friends and Daniel’s coaches stayed with her at the hospital.
Boydston and Dr. Barun Brahma, another Children’s neurosurgeon, performed follow-up surgery to remove the AVM and second blood clot. Daniel later had a cranioplasty to replace a piece of his skull that had been “on ice” for more than three weeks.
All this time the family had the support of the school and hospital communities, including Daniel’s anesthesiologist, who also has a son at Blessed Trinity. Mary Ellen said former youth baseball teammates from years past reached out and people donated DoorDash cards so they could eat without worrying about cooking.
His parents had been told Daniel might not understand them once he was taken off sedation, and they might not understand him. So, they were pleased when he voiced words that they could clearly understand as he struggled with restraints and was slowly weaned from the sedation. He could even understand his doctor’s communication with him, as he squeezed his hand when asked.
“It was utterly just amazing to hear him speaking in a way that we could hear and understand him,” Mary Ellen said.
He spent 30 days in the hospital and was in the ICU for more than two weeks. He spent each day in November and December at the Children’s rehabilitation facilities before returning to the family home in Sandy Springs. His hours in rehab were set from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. mimicking school hours to help him prepare for his return.
Daniel said his sports training and dedication helped him keep up with his speech and physical therapy. Like baseball or football practice, he knew he needed to keep at it to improve.
And in January when students returned to school for the second semester, he was there with them – just 10 weeks after undergoing brain surgery.
Daniel said he’s got a lot of catching up to do.
“I have to do a whole quarter of the work from last semester. So my main goal is to get it all done,” he said.
The school has helped reduce his workload by shifting his Latin class to next year.
He doesn’t just want to complete the work, he said he wants to excel at it, and Blessed Trinity has extended the time to complete the missed coursework.
Daniel’s goal in sports is to return to the same level of athleticism as he had before his collapse. Doctors haven’t told him when he can start working out again. He wants to rebuild those muscles, especially his legs which he said are so much smaller.
Drew said it has been great to watch sports with his son and talk strategy because it showed a higher level of thinking is still there.
His mother isn’t sure how Daniel will take not being able to play baseball this spring, something he’s been doing since he was 4 years old. That didn’t stop him from going to a pitching evaluation session with his long-time pitching coach to help determine his chances of returning to the pitcher’s mound.
His dad said Daniel was a pretty high-level pitcher before this health crisis.
Mary Ellen offered advice when asked about advice for parents going through a similar crisis: “Do not give up and just take it day by day. Each step after surgery was a blessing in having him alive,” she said.
Everybody’s journey is different, so try not to compare your situation because you are likely to hear more bad than good, Drew said. “Don’t get ahead of yourself and take it day by day, and count the wins,” he said.
