Arlington boy, 14, dies after basketball game

A 14-year-old boy honored last year as a survivor of pediatric heart surgery died Thursday night after complaining of chest pains while playing basketball at an Arlington junior high school.

Chase Sayles was pronounced dead at 9:52 p.m. at Medical Center of Arlington.

The cause and manner of death had not been reported by the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office late Friday.

A 911 call at 8:21 p.m. sent first responders to Barnett Junior High School, 2101 E. Sublett Road, Arlington fire Lt. Lee Tovar said.

The caller reported that a teen playing basketball was having chest pains. When firefighters arrived, he was unresponsive and CPR was begun before he was taken to the hospital.

Sayles, who would have been a ninth-grader at Martin High School this year, was in the Barnett gym for a practice with a youth league team, said Leslie Johnston, a spokeswoman for the Arlington school district.

Family, friends and others are donating to the Chase Sayles Memorial Fund to help with funeral costs. Saturday morning, more than $2,200 had been raised at de.gofund.me/chasesayles.

He had completed the eighth grade at Boles Junior High.

Sayles’ congenital heart defect, transposition of the great arteries, was diagnosed soon after birth, and he had surgery that appeared to correct the problem.

In 2014, the American Heart Association of Tarrant County honored him as a survivor during its Big Heart Ball in Cowtown.

A video of his story was featured on YouTube by Cook Children’s Health Care System. The then-12-year-old talks about playing junior high basketball and football.

“I don’t think about my heart at all,” he says. “You can do anything that you want. It doesn’t affect you in any way. I won MVP for basketball.”

This story was originally published July 17, 2015 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Arlington boy, 14, dies after basketball game."