A young Prince Edward County Minor Hockey Association player is in stable condition and resting comfortably in an Ottawa hospital after suffering cardiac arrest at the Deseronto arena Saturday morning.

Parker Philip, 14, and his bantam local league Kings were early into their Inter Community Hockey League regular season game against the host Deseronto Bulldogs when the PECI student collapsed on the ice.

Kings training staff and, eventually, a number of off-duty medical personal including Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital registered nurse Amy Wier as well as registered nurses Melanie Carter and Natalie Hart worked to revive Philip, ultimately employing the arena’s automated external defibrillator.

Paramedics rushed Philip to Kingston General Hospital where the Grade 9 student was assessed and then air lifted by medical transport to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) where he is undergoing medical testing.

In a statement to the Gazette, Karrie Philip said both the neurologist and cardiologist attending to her son at CHEO have commended the work undertaken by those on the ice in the moments after Parker’s collapse and attributed his current state to their immediate efforts in the aftermath of the cardiac issue.

“We are just so grateful to everyone that was there every step of the way and we can’t thank them enough,” Karrie Philip said.

Karrie and Jimmy Philip, through a social media post, thanked concerned family and friends for their thoughts and prayers and comments at such a “scary and vulnerable” time.

UPDATE: Parker Philip continues to rest comfortably at CHEO.

According to a social media post from Karrie Philip Dec. 29, the AED unit at the Deseronto Arena has a readable memory and data recovered from the machine confirmed that the young Kings hockey player did suffer cardiac arrest on the ice surface.

Karrie Philip wrote the cardiologist teams at Sick Kids, The Heart Institute and CHEO wanted the information before moving forward with a plan because of the impact an internal defibrillator has on a child’s life style and the ongoing commitment of care.

Medical diagnostic testing has yet to reveal an immediate  cause of the episode but an internal defibrillator and regular monitoring over the next two years by cardiologists will likely reveal the pieces of a puzzle that specialists will put together.