It was the scariest moment of his entire life.

During a family vacation in Mexico, Amos, his four-year-old daughter Airie, and the rest of their family were playing in the hotel swimming pool. Suddenly Amos’s wife started screaming—Airie was submerged in the water, not moving. Amos leaped into the pool and pulled her out, then performed CPR and managed to resuscitate the little girl.

This traumatic incident wasn’t the first time Airie had passed out unexpectedly—she had experienced a similar situation a year earlier when she fell unconscious while going down a slide at a playground. At the time doctors hadn’t been able to determine the cause.

After the family returned home from their vacation, they took Airie to the doctor, who referred them to specialists and, eventually, they visited the cardiology department at BC Children’s Hospital. After a week, the test results came back: Airie had Long QT Syndrome (LQTS), a heart condition that could be passed through family genetics. The entire family was tested, and it was revealed that Amos and his son Kian also had this condition, as well Amos’s mother and one of his sisters.

This news was the missing piece of a 30-year puzzle that had eluded Amos for most of his life. Ever since he was a child, he had suffered from a mysterious ailment that caused him to pass out while he was engaged in intense physical activities. They were never able to identify why this happened, and so he had simply learned to live with it, refraining from participating in many forms of physical activity. “It was a relief to finally know the cause,” Amos said.

Airie, Amos and Kian were prescribed medications to help control the LQTS and they visit BC Children’s Hospital regularly for checkups. Thanks to the help they received at the hospital, the entire family is now able to move on and enjoy their lives without limiting the children’s potential.

“It’s a relief to know what we have,” Amos said, “to know what the effects of the medication are, to know we can live a normal life.”