Mason Martin

Doctors at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh may have identified the reason for the latest change to injured Karns City Area Jr./Sr. High School quarterback Mason Martin’s condition.

The teen’s father, Denny Martin, posted an update to Facebook on Tuesday, Jan. 23.

Mason, who has been hospitalized since being injured during a football game in September, has spent much of the past week alternating between a state of agitation and experiencing sudden, rapid drops in heart rate, according to Martin.

“After some testing, the general consensus is that Mason was suffering from an overactive vagus nerve, which I believe is often referred to as vagal tone,” Martin said.

The vagus nerve, or vagal nerves, play significant roles in involuntary sensory and motor functions, including digestion, immune system responses and heart rate, according to Cleveland Clinic.

“The vagus nerve is responsible for basically calming the heart rate and breathing rate,” Martin said, noting he’s not a doctor, rather passing information along as he understands it. “An overactive vagus nerve calms it too much. Instead of stopping at baseline, his system just kept going, resulting in the extreme drop in heart rate and oxygen levels.

“To snap him out of this he had to be aroused by banging his chest and sometimes giving him oxygen. It is as scary as it sounds.”

One situation prompted a nurse to put an alert out to the hospital, bringing all available resources in the room.

“On a side note, I think Mason is going for the UPMC record of most conditions called for one patient. I believe he is at four, maybe five,” Martin said.

In a Facebook post on Jan. 20, Martin admitted he was “scared to death” about his son’s health.

“I haven’t felt this level of fear since the first three weeks after the accident,” Martin said in the Jan. 20 post.

According to Mason’s father, the scare seems to correlate with a recent change in his medication, when doctors increased his dose of “beta blockers” from two per day to three per day. This change has been reversed, and the effects so far have been positive.

“Mason has not had an extreme drop in either his heart rate or oxygen levels the last two nights,” Martin said Tuesday.

Martin also made sure to thank those on social media who offered their thoughts and prayers for Mason over the past week.

“I cannot thank everyone enough for all the prayers on Sunday,” Martin wrote. “The prayers Sunday evening felt so powerful, and they were definitely heard. I knew I could count on all of you and that support feels great.”