Baseball hits boy, stops his heart, during game in California

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. >> Officials say an 8-year-old boy’s heart stopped after he was hit in the chest with a baseball during a game in Northern California, but he’s expected to survive.

Aaron Johnson, a director for Cal Ripken Baseball in Rohnert Park, tells the Santa Rosa Press Democrat Opens in a new tab the boy was hit while at bat Saturday. The boy took about five steps toward first base and collapsed.

Two parents performed CPR until paramedics came and used a defibrillator to restart his heart. He was breathing, had a pulse and was talking as he left in an ambulance.

The boy was recovering at Oakland Children’s Hospital. Johnson declined to release his name.

Last week a Southern California boy died after a softball hit him in the chest at school on his 16th birthday.