Heart Condition Ends Burt’s College Career

Washington guard Kayla Burt ended her college career Monday, four days after her internal heart defibrillator went off during a game.

The 23-year-old senior had the defibrillator implanted in her chest after her heart stopped on New Year’s Eve 2002. She was in her off-campus apartment then for a holiday gathering and teammates came to her rescue, performing CPR until paramedics arrived and took her to a hospital.

“The decision is a mutual agreement between myself, my family, the doctors and the University of Washington,” Burt said at a news conference with Coach June Daugherty and the Huskies’ team doctor, Kim Harmon.

Harmon supported Burt’s decision.

“We still don’t know why it happened,” she said about Burt’s defibrillator going off Thursday night during a home game against UCLA.

Burt said she didn’t want to take any more risks after the defibrillator went off during a timeout in the first half of last week’s game, and then a second time while she was waiting to be taken to a hospital.

She went to the University of Washington Medical Center, was held for observation and tests and released the next day.

After her cardiac arrest, she sat out the remainder of the 2002-03 season and was a redshirt in 2003-04. Doctors and Burt then decided it was safe for her to play basketball again.

Burt said she didn’t second-guess her decision to return to play.

She played 15 games, all as a reserve, this season and averaged 6.9 points. She played 29 games as a junior, including 16 starts, averaging 9.6 points.