He's a little unsteady on his feet, but for now, just getting to the prom is a big deal. If not for the skill of some spectators at his lacrosse game last weekend -- including three Charlotte doctors whose sons play for Providence Day School -- an automated external defibrillator and some luck, Beuris would be dead.
"I think I've always known what to appreciate in life," Beuris said at his Cary home, "but I've changed a little bit.
"I know how close I came to dying. You don't think your time is coming when you're this young, but it almost happened."
In lacrosse, players use sticks with webbed pockets to pass a 5-ounce rubber ball and shoot it toward the goal. A shot struck Beuris in the chest.
Such a blow can trigger ventricular fibrillation if it strikes at exactly the wrong time in the heart's electrical cycle -- a condition known as commotio cordis.
"His heart was just fluttering," said his father, Greg Beuris.
Alex, who was an all-state lacrosse defender last year, has no memory of what happened next, but he threw off his helmet, collapsed and went into spasms.
Gibbons teammate Rory O'Brien immediately motioned for his father, Dr. Patrick O'Brien, the medical director of WakeMed rehab.
Three Providence Day parents -- Dr. Eric Laxer and Dr. Matt Ohl, both orthopedic surgeons, and Dr. Lee Ann McGinnis, an anesthesiologist -- rushed to the field as well.
Beuris was having convulsions, his breathing intermittent and his color fluctuating from pink to ashen, Laxer recalls.
"Just when it seemed that Alex was coming around, his body went flaccid and his breathing stopped," Laxer wrote in an account of the incident. "We called out his name and he lay motionless. He was unresponsive, and his color quickly turned blue."
The doctors began CPR, and someone rushed a portable defibrillator to the field. McGinnis, who is trained in cardiac anesthesiology, administered the shock.
The first time, Laxer says, Beuris's body jumped off the ground, but he remained blue.
The machine, designed to be used by a layman, gave instructions to administer another shock. McGinnis pressed the button again.
This time, Beuris's heart started. His color returned. Soon afterward, paramedics arrived and took him to the hospital.
Despite all of the medical expertise, Beuris probably would have become the third high school lacrosse fatality since 1982 and the second from commotio cordis, if the Catholic school had not had the defibrillator on-site.
Gibbons has had a defibrillator, or AED, since 2001. When Beuris was a freshman, one of his duties was to carry the device to games.
"I was low man on the totem pole, so I got the job," he said. "They told me the machine cost $2,000 to $3,000, so I never messed with it."
He remembers nothing about Saturday's episode on the field. He recalls being hit with a stick early in the game and later being at the hospital -- gasping for air while having an MRI exam taken.
His heart has been checked and rechecked. It is healthy, although there is a recovery process. His body is slowly healing itself. His memory is improving. His stamina is improving. He is expected to make a full recovery.
McGinnis says the visiting team learned a lesson: Providence Day, a private school in southeast Charlotte, already has four automatic defibrillators. Now it plans to buy four more to take on the road with the baseball and lacrosse teams, sports where the risk of commotio cordis is highest.
McGinnis said she has done plenty of resuscitation in hospitals and was impressed by how easy the machines make it. "I would encourage anybody to not hesitate to use it," she said.
And while the school has an abundance of parents who are doctors, anyone can learn CPR, she noted.
