Andrew Stafford

One month before his sixteenth birthday in 1991, Andrew Stafford died from an undiagnosed hereditary heart arrhythmia in Houston. "He was a big, strong football player," said Dick Stafford, Andrew's father who is now the associate pastor at North Phoenix Baptist church. "And all of a sudden, in a car with his friends, he just dies."

Andrew had Long QT Syndrome, an infrequent, hereditary disorder of the heart's electrical rhythm, detected through an EKG test. Even though Andrew received two physicals a year, one with his family physician and the other through his high school athletic department, no EKG was administered and his condition went undetected until it was too late. "You keep asking, 'Is there anything we could have done?'" asks Dick. "I try to protect my family and here's something that I didn't know to protect him from." Dick, along with 300 others, is now a volunteer for Arizona TOPS, Team of Physicians for Students.

TOPS, started in 1965 by Phoenix physician Dr. Paul Steingard, offers free sports screening physicals with cardiac testing, including electrocardiograms and ultrasounds of the heart, to approximately 2,000 high school athletes. "If there had been a component in Andrew's high school physicals that administered an EKG, we probably would have caught this," Dick says.

After Andrew's death, Dick's other children, both athletes, were tested and found to also have Long QT syndrome. Fortunately, their conditions were caught early enough for them to make the necessary life-style changes and medical adjustments to continue with their regular active lifestyles.

As for Dick, he is grateful for TOPS' commitment to screening student athletes. "They're a wonderful group of volunteers," he exclaims. "And they're all motivated by the question, 'Can we find these kids before they have a problem?'"