Alie Girvin captured the District 3 Triple-A discus championship here Friday. She also won the Lancaster-Lebanon League discus last Saturday. You won’t believe what she had to overcome to win a pair of gold medals in less than a week. She shared her story with me Friday. And I’ll share that story with you here:
SHIPPENSBURG – The last thing Alie Girvin remembers is bending over to pick out a pack of gum.
“Next thing I know, I’m in the back of an ambulance,” Penn Manor’s affable junior track and field athlete said.
“I don’t even remember blacking out. I remember picking up a newspaper, and then looking at the gum.”
That’s when Girvin suffered a grand mal seizure, right there at the checkout counter inside the Turkey Hill in New Danville – just a couple of hours before the Lancaster-Lebanon League track and field championships last Saturday morning.
She was on her way to Penn Manor to catch the team bus to Hempfield, site of the meet. Girvin made a quick pit stop at Turkey Hill to grab a newspaper and a pack of gum.
“I’m very religious, so I’m convinced God was watching out for me, because there was an ambulance there in the parking lot, and the guys were in line behind me getting coffee,” Girvin said. “While I was having the seizure, they picked up my cell phone and ended up calling one of my coaches at Penn Manor.
“That person called (head coach Joe) Herman and my family, and they all met in the emergency room at Lancaster General.”
There, doctors said Girvin’s grand mal seizure lasted nearly two minutes, and they performed an Electroencephalogram (EEG) and a Computed Tomography (CT scan) on her brain.
The EEG results are due back Monday.
Incredibly, just hours after she suffered the grand mal seizure, took an ambulance ride to the emergency room and sat through a pair of brain scans, Girvin was in the throwing circles at Hempfield, where she uncorked a throw of 134-7 and claimed the gold in the discus.
Just six short days and a couple of doctor’s visits later, here at Shippensburg University Friday afternoon, Girvin, the No. 1 seed in the discus, broke her own school record with a heave of 136-1 and won the District 3 Triple-A championship.
From a seizure to a pair of brain scans to the top of the medal platform – twice in less than a week.
“I’m at a loss for words,” Girvin said, her eyes beginning to well with tears.
“I was very, very lucky and I’m very, very thankful … I really do believe God was right there with me because I could have been driving. I’m lucky I stopped at Turkey Hill because if I would have been on the road … I don’t know what might have happened.”
Then Girvin paused and looked down at the shiny plastic case holding her gold medal.
“I love the discus,” she said. “This is my passion.”
A grand mal seizure is a result of an abnormal electrical discharge in the brain, and is usually accompanied by the loss of consciousness. That’s exactly what happened to Girvin.
The cause of any seizure can vary, and often times the cause of a seizure in unknown. Multiple brain seizures can lead to epilepsy, but, according to webmd.com, only a small percentage of people who suffer at least one seizure develop epilepsy.
Girvin said she’s still getting headaches and that her license has been revoked until her EEG tests come back.
“From what my doctors are saying,” she said, “this shouldn’t happen again. I’m trying not to think about it. I’m trying to push it out of my mind.”
Girvin was able to do that at least two times in the last six days: When she walked out of the emergency room and won the L-L League gold last Saturday, and followed that up with her best throw ever here Friday.
Girvin also finished sixth in the shot put with a heave of 35-1 ½ on Friday to earn her second medal.
That she’s earned any medals at all in the last six days is nothing short of miraculous.
But remember: Alie Girvin is passionate about the discus. And she wasn’t going to let a little thing like a grand mal seizure stop her from making her throws.
