By Evan MacDonald
Advance Ohio Media
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio — The family of the Brush High School hockey player who died suddenly from an enlarged heart has started a foundation to raise awareness for undiagnosed cardiac conditions.
The 4Alec Foundation will bring attention to heart conditions and diseases like the one that caused Alec Kornet’s death on Feb. 14, his mother Stephanie Kornet said.
Cardiomegaly -- also known as an enlarged heart -- caused the 17-year-old boy’s death along with myocyte hypertrophy with hypergranular myocytes and epicarditis, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office determined.
The foundation will raise money to provide free electrocardiograms, the medical tests that detect problems with the electrical activity of hearts. The tests will initially be offered to Brush High School and Memorial Junior High School students, but the foundation’s goal is to offer them to the entire South Euclid-Lyndhurst School District community, Kornet said.
“I felt like we had to do something to bring awareness to undiagnosed heart conditions, so another family wouldn’t have to go through this,” she said.
The foundation will have a kickoff event from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Thursday during the boys’ and girls’ soccer games at Brush High School. Dr. Peter Aziz, a pediatric cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, will speak between the two games at 6:30 p.m.
The foundation will sell rubber “4Alec” bracelets and stickers during the game to raise money, Kornet said.
Information about the foundation can also be found on its website, 4Alec.org.
Alec experienced trouble breathing and collapsed during hockey practice at the Cleveland Heights Recreation Pavilion on Monticello Boulevard. He died after paramedics took him to Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital.
Alec was the second of three boys, with one older brother and one younger brother, his family said. He was a member of Brush High School’s band and its soccer, hockey and baseball teams.
Kornet said her family is still grieving Alec’s death, but the foundation has provided a respite for them, she said.
“We feel like this is our mission,” she said.
The Brush High School community honored Alec in the days after he died, including during a pregame memorial for the junior honors student. His family -- including his brother, then-sophomore Mike Kornet, who started in goal in the team’s regional tournament game against Lake Catholic High School -- participated in the memorial by dropping a puck at center ice before the playoff game.
Copyright 2017 Advance Ohio Media