HOUSTON – Teen athletes, powerful, strong and looking invincible are pushing themselves to the limit in the gym and on the athletic field.
“I really push myself to be even more than the best I can be,” Chase Garrison, a high school quarterback from Pearland, said.
The trouble is, too many times, these young athletes have no idea what is actually going on inside their young hearts.
They may have a hidden heart defect that could kill them at any moment, but they have no idea.
“My son was amazing, he was an amazing young man,” says Amy Travioli, whose son died in 2016.
Standing 6 feet tall and built like Captain America, 19-year-old Mason Travioli of Kingwood looked unstoppable.
A lightning-fast track star, he had been playing competitive sports since he was 4 and never showed any signs of heart trouble.
And then, suddenly, in 2016, after returning home from a heavy weight workout, Mason went to sleep for the night and never woke up.
He died in his sleep, victim of a hidden heart abnormality nobody knew he had.
“I found him there and I remember thinking, this can’t be true, this can’t be happening to him,” Travioli said while breaking into tears.
Now, to save every one of us from ever having to live through the agony of losing a child, Amy Travioli and her husband Chuck have started Mason’s Heart Foundation.
On Saturday, Mason’s Heart Foundation is teaming up with the Cody Stephens Go Big or Go Home Foundation, KPRC-TV and a whole list of generous donors to offer free, in-depth, heart screens to all young athletes, from 11 to 25 years of age.
The free event will be held at Dogwood Elementary School, 600 Dogwood Lane in New Caney, Texas, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
The heart screen will offer hundreds of young people a fast, painless, electrocardiogram test to detect hidden heart problems inside the heart.
It’s a test that could cost parents hundreds of dollars, if they had to pay for it themselves on their own, but we are offering all of this absolutely free.
As Amy puts it, it’s a test that could have saved her precious, son’s life, if she had known about it.
Her advice to all parents is simple: “This is life and death. Don’t take the risk. Knowing what we know now, don’t take the risk of not knowing what’s happening with your child ... take advantage and get your kids tested.”
You need to register your child in advance for the screening and you can do that by clicking on the link we have provided here.
We want to thank all of our generous partners who are making the heart screenings possible:
- Texas Metal Equipment
- PLK Services
- NorthStar
- The Toasted Yolk Valley Ranch
- RC's Pizza Valley Ranch
- Dental Health Center of New Caney
- The Cody Stephens Foundation