Teen heart failure survivor to drop Hockeyville puck

A 13-year-old hockey player who ismaking a comeback after a serious health scare has been chosen to drop the puck at the Kraft Hockeyville NHL game in eastern Newfoundland Monday night.

Cody Porter, of Conception Bay South, had a close call last month after mysterious condition stopped his heart more than once.

It happened in late August, as he was trying to land a spot on the provincial team.

"It was a big try-out and I really wanted to make it and put my best into it. I was really excited," he told CBC News.

But when he got to the camp in Gander, he didn't feel right.

On the first day he had a headache. By the next morning, his condition had deteriorated.

'Probably a half-an-hour to45 minutes is when they lost his vitals the first time,' Laura Lee Porter, Cody's mother

"I was in the dressing room, and I just felt like I had to lie down. I was really sensitive to the light and I had to close my eyes," said Porter.

"The last thing I remember was the ambulance putting me on the stretcher, but that's all I can remember from there."

His mother, Laura Lee Porter remembers every excruciating moment.

"Probably a half-an-hour to45 minutes is when they lost his vitals the first time," she said. He flatlined a second time in the air ambulance, headed to the Janeway Hospital in St. Johns.

He was sedated for five days until doctors discovered a mysterious growth on his heart.

When Porter left the hospital eleven days after he arrived there, he had lost fifteen pounds of muscle in his arms and legs but more importantly to Porter, he was told to stay off the ice for a while.

"I went to the doctor and he said I could get in hockey but my full strength wouldn't be back until around Christmas. For hockey, that's almost the middle of the year, you'd be pretty much letting your team down, so..." said Porter.

He decided not to play this year.

It was a tough decisionbut the Kraft Hockeyville committee hopes a chance to drop the first puck at Monday nights game will help Porter absorb the blow.