OMAHA, Neb. -- A Bellevue teenager whose heart stopped while playing a video game last week is recovering, thanks to a device and some heroes who knew how to use it.
Kimber Wilson, 15, is in the intensive care unit at Children's Hospital in good condition.
Wilson was playing the game Dance Dance Revolution at a Bellevue arcade with a friend June 22 when she fell to the floor. The arcade owners gave her CPR, then a police officer took over. Paramedics shocked her several times with a defibrillator at the arcade to get her heart working again.
The diagnosis, once Wilson got to a hospital, was hypertrophy cardiomyopathy. The walls around her heart are so thick that her heart wasn't getting the signals to beat.
"You could be asleep, walking running, sitting down to eat. It can hit ya," said Eddie Wilson, Kimber's father.
"She was in the right place with all the right people around her," said mother Julie Wilson.
Kimber now has a pacemaker and will be on medication for the rest of her life, but she should be out of the hospital soon and back to hanging out with her friends at the arcade.
"I might try Dance Dance Revolution, but I'm thinking no," Kimber said.
The Wilsons are thanking all of the people who came to Kimber's rescue, and they've been checking up on her in the hospital.
The heart problem is genetic and the incident prompted members of her family to get tested. Her mother got checked and has a mild form. An echocardiogram can usually detect the disease.
