Family searches for answers as 12-year-old recovers from heart attack

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) – Sammy Silverman should now be in eighth grade at Blackman Middle School.

Instead, he and his parents have spent the last six weeks at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital in Nashville.

Sammy's parents say doctors still don't know how their son, who they say was in excellent health and active, could have suffered a heart attack at age 12.

“You never think, hey, this is going to happen to my child,” Janette Silverman said. “Then it happens.”

Adam and Janette Silverman, Sammy's parents, say it started in July when he caught a stomach virus. Almost two days later, Sammy was feeling better.

“He collapsed before my eyes,” Adam recalled.

Adam says Sammy went into cardiac arrest and he performed CPR until paramedics arrived. According to paramedics, they lost Sammy's pulse four times on the way to the hospital.

“It's so frustrating. He was a happy, healthy 12-year-old boy,” Janette said.

The most frustrating thing is that the doctors are just as confused as they are, say Adam and Janette.

“You don’t know why my son is in this situation,” Adam said.

Sammy was transferred to Vanderbilt, where a once grim prognosis turned into miraculous progress. Since his hospitalization, Janette has had to give up her job, her only source of income since her husband's stroke.

Since they don't have their own car, they still take Uber from Murfreesboro to Nashville every day to be with their son.

“We're home with our three girls and it's like part of our family isn't here because he's not with us,” Janette said. “Whatever he is, I just want him with us and he will be.”

Sammy, who was once on a ventilator, is now breathing on his own. Although his prognosis is forever uncertain, they hope to transfer him to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which specializes in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation.

“He took his first breaths on his own. It was incredible,” Janette said. “I knew that day that he would be OK.”

Six weeks after an unexplained incident, they stick together. The road to recovery leads through Atlanta, but they are willing to do anything to bring Sammy back home.

“My family is everything,” said Adam. “Without family, you don't have much.”

The family continues to be in a difficult financial situation as Sammy's medical bills all need to be paid. They have started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover the costs as both parents are unable to work and they still have young daughters at home.

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