Sports Extra: Manasse Mahungu

Manasse Mahungu loves basketball so much so that on the first day of basketball practice at Doherty High School, he walked 40 minutes to school for a 5 a.m. practice. 

"He loves basketball more than any other kid in the program."

"His love for the game is just unreal."

Traveling a great distance is nothing new for Manasse.  In October, along with his mother and brother, they left their home country in Nambia in Africa for Colorado Springs as political refugees.

"I had to, like, start a new life in a different place, get to like, you know, new people have different opportunities," Manasse says.

Manasse got to meet new people. Thanks to the basketball team at Doherty.

"The first time I saw him, I say, Damn, he's fast," says his teammate on the freshman team, Juan Aliaga. "I was like, really surprised because I wasn't expecting that."

Being new to the country, let alone at Doherty, no one in the Spartans program knew much about Manasse but instantly they learned that his smile and warm personality  makes people gravitate toward him.

"His presence is real contagious, for sure."

"The kindest of soul."

This kind soul fitting quickly,  catching the attention of the coaches for his athleticism and his basketball intellect.  But he would tire quickly in games.  They just assumed  he wasn't acclimated to the altitude.

"We were expecting something from him  that he really couldn't give us, but we knew was in him."

On January 16th, Manasse, a freshman, got to play for the sophomore team at Legend High School. 

"Manasse was playing great for us," says coach joseph Dalton.

He was playing great but then he had to come out of the game because he was experiencing chest pains. 

"He started having the chest pains and coach give me out. So I  tried calling timeout," Dalton says.

"Like once they call the timeout. I just like, felt like breathing became really, really hard," Manasse recalls. "So I wanted to sit out a little bit, but I wanted to tell coach about it, but I didn't have the breath to sort comes out. "

Manasse collapsed on the court and lost consciousness.

"Last thing I remember, like when I fell in my head, I was like, Is this the end?"

The athletic trainers at Legend High School rushed into action. 

"When we first got there, he had a pulse. and not too long after I lost radial pulse. And then  a few seconds later, Sara lost the carotid pulse. I  grabbed the A-E-D put it on and administered the shock and did a first round of CPR," said athletic trainer Maddie England.

England and head athletic trainer Sara Kramer saved his life.

"I have the ability and the tools and I was able to help him," Kramer says.

He was taken to the hospital and eventually ended up at Children's Hospital in Aurora. Manasse was in critical condition. 

"The first day I woke up, it was on a Tuesday.  I just woke up. I looked at my mom. She was in tears. I woke up on Thursday. That's when like I realized I was in the hospital. And then I asked my mom,  Why am I here? She didn't want to tell me,  so I didn't like, bother asking anymore."

Doctors determined that Manasse had a heart defect.

"So I tried moving. I couldn't move. Like my whole upper body wasn't just  working at all."

Six days later, he had open heart surgery. Doctors more or less went in  and twisted his coronary arteries.

"Just pull down the bed sheet. And then  so in my chest, I'm having a  scar. So  I was like,  I told my mom,  like, did I like, did something happen when I was playing basketball? And then she was like, yeah."

"The crazy part is when we went into the hospital and seen him after surgeries, he literally just pulled his shirt down and said, Look what I got," says C-Squad coach Rj Curtis. "I mean, just the grit in the kid like nothing fazes him."

Manasse told me that he remembers the feeling he used to have in his chest, even when he was playing basketball in his native land.

"Whenever I run a lot, I just feel like pinching my heart and I can breathe.  It's just hard for me to breathe."

Everyone who loves and cares for Manasse is breathing a sigh of relief. 

"God is really good. He really is."

"I really thank God that he's good now." 

  Last week at Legend High School, they celebrated the life of Manasse. 

"Yes I'm starting to let that sink in that I saved a life initially that just didn't compute. It's a humbling feeling."

"Just knowing that he is he's okay. He's going to be okay.  And he gets to live another day because all the right people were in the right places at the right time."

Even Legend high school legend and current Boston Celtic Derrick White sent him his best wishes. 

The kid with a heart of gold can now live out his basketball dreams.

"I just want to be a better person and be better than I was before."