Tim Walsh aids scout Jim Sann

ByMike Mazzeo ESPN logo
Wednesday, February 4, 2015

TORONTO -- Credit Brooklyn Nets trainer Tim Walsh with not one, but two life-saving assists this season.

On Sunday, Nets advance scout Jim Sann suffered a mild heart attack and went into cardiac arrest while at practice, but Walsh and the team's training staff kept him alive by performing CPR and using a defibrillator, according to multiple reports.

"It was definitely one of the scariest things I've ever seen," Nets point guard Deron Williams said Wednesday morning. "I just pray (Jim) makes a full, speedy recovery and he gets back out there."

Added Nets coach Lionel Hollins: "We're thankful that Jim is alive and everything worked out for him. Tim did his job, and he did it good."

Sann is usually on the road scouting Brooklyn's next opponent.

"It's miraculous," Sann told the New York Post. "It's even beyond miraculous."

Walsh, who was selected as the Jim O'Toole Athletic Trainer of the Year for 2013-14, also was instrumental along with team physician Dr. Michael Farber in encouraging Mirza Teletovic to get a CT scan after he was released from a Los Angeles hospital in late January after complaining of shortness of breath during a Nets-Clippers game. Tests eventually showed that Teletovic had multiple blood clots in his lungs. He is out for the season.

Sann told the Post that he began feeling a "burning sensation" in his chest during practice, but didn't think anything of it. He took some heartburn medication and figured everything would be fine.

"Usually on a scale of 1 to 10, the burning is a 4," Sann told the Post. "This was like a 15. This was going on, and then all of a sudden I was like, 'Holy (expletive).' So I walked over to the basket stanchion, sat down, and that's the last thing I remember."

Sann, who said he's always had a healthy lifestyle and thought this would never happen to him, lost consciousness before being revived. The 46-year-old lost his wife to cancer and has two children, so he feels fortunate to be alive.

"I had warning signs for weeks that this was going to happen, and I was stupid about it," Sann told Yahoo! Sports, which first reported the incident. "And my two kids were almost orphans because of that."

Sann was expected to be released from the hospital Wednesday.