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GREENSBORO — Jesse DeSanto's heart stopped just after he crossed home plate three years ago.

DeSanto, a 16-year-old

high school sophomore at the time, was at baseball practice and expected to play shortstop that season for the Manteo High School Redskins.

After cardiac arrest nearly killed DeSanto, he fought to live. Then he fought to get back on the field.

And this month, he finally overcame legal obstacles to play for Guilford College.

DeSanto, 19, had an undetected condition that caused his heart to stop.

Similar conditions have killed athletes such as Gaines Adams, the Chicago Bears defensive end who died in January, and Boston Celtics star Reggie Lewis, who died in 1993.

Most learn of the problem too late.

DeSanto didn't know about his until 2007.

He had played baseball since age 4, and sometimes he had tunnel vision or felt his heart race.

But many athletes take pride in playing through pain.

"I thought maybe it would be the heat thing," he said.

"I could feel my heart going fast, and then a couple of minutes later it would be fine."

DeSanto practiced on weekends with his dad, Tommy.

"It's as good as dark, into the dusk, and he'd say, 'Just throw me one more bucket,' " his father said. "I'd have to say, 'Jess, I'm beat.' "

DeSanto is an only child. When his family moved to the Outer Banks before his ninth-grade year, he showed up as one of the area's rising stars.

At 5-feet-8, 165 pounds, he has good field awareness and is a decent hitter, coaches say.

"If you've ever met this little guy, he's a ball of fire," said his high school coach, Kenny Meekins. "He's the guy who is going to get the team going. He's that kind of kid."

Meekins and another coach gave DeSanto CPR after he collapsed Feb. 15, 2007.

The survival rate for cardiac arrest is 30 to 45 percent if victims receive defibrillation in seven minutes, the American Heart Association says. In that span, Meekins said, paramedics arrived and took DeSanto to the hospital in Nags Head.

Doctors weren't sure DeSanto would survive.

He was in an induced coma for a half-day. Six days later, DeSanto received an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, also called an ICD, at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, Va.

The ICD will jolt his heart if it stops again.

"They didn't think I would live through the resuscitation," DeSanto said. "And then they thought, 'He's going to be a vegetable for the rest of his life.' "

DeSanto was back in school within two weeks.

But after the implant, doctors said he couldn't play baseball.

"And he cried," his father said. "He cried hard."

Baseball was his life.

"I ended up not being dead and not being a vegetable, and then they said, 'Jesse, you can't play,' " he said.

DeSanto said he "kind of flipped out."

"I was really depressed," he said.

In the summer of 2007, he bussed tables and golfed, which doctors allowed.

He also surfed and threw a baseball, which doctors said were no-nos.

"Everything they told me not to do, I did it," he said.

DeSanto was healing.

On Oct. 23, 2007, DeSanto was cleared to play baseball.

He went on to become Manteo team MVP twice, won the team batting title and played in the 2008 State Games of North Carolina. DeSanto also was named all-conference twice in the Class 1-A Four Rivers League.

Except for a pad under his jersey to protect the defibrillator from a direct blow, DeSanto shows few signs of having an ICD.

He bangs his fist on the pad and doesn't feel a thing. The device, he said, rises from his chest about a quarter-inch.

There's not much date on how athletes with ICDs perform in game situations. DeSanto is a part of a national study on athletes with ICDs, which should determine whether there is increased health risk for those players.

About 255 have registered for the study, said Rachel Lampert, an associate professor of cardiology at Yale University and head of the registry. She hopes to eventually track 400 athletes.

"We should have an answer in a couple of years," she said.

A Sports Illustrated story Feb. 1 told about an ICD that saved Belgian soccer player Anthony Van Loo.

In a video on YouTube, Van Loo experiences cardiac arrest and collapses during a game. His body convulses from the ICD's shock, and 15 seconds later Van Loo is sitting up.

DeSanto's defibrillator would work similarly.

But he hopes it will never have to save him.

Even with the safeguard of an ICD, DeSanto almost didn't play this year.

Guilford College knew of DeSanto's condition when he was recruited, but college officials told him last fall that he couldn't play.

DeSanto's family said it was a liability issue. If something happened, who was to blame?

"Jesse did not pass his initial, mandatory physical given to all Guilford College student-athletes," said Aaron Fetrow, Guilford's dean for campus life.

So DeSanto had another test on his hands.

"We had no knowledge that the college wasn't going to let him play. So we had to get a lawyer," said his father. As paperwork bounced between DeSanto and Guilford, he couldn't even practice.

But he did make the roster.

"It was just a matter of them saying, 'You're cleared to play,' " DeSanto said.

And waiving liability for the school if something bad happens to DeSanto.

"The next guy who comes along and has an ICD, they won't brush it off," his father said. "We fought it because it was the right thing to do."

Finally, on Feb. 9, he was approved to play for the second time in his life.

He played second base Tuesday for Guilford's junior varsity against GTCC.

DeSanto was robbed of a line-drive hit by a diving GTCC outfielder in one at-bat.

On defense, he took a throw from third base and turned the pivot for a double play to end the seventh inning.

Guilford lost, but the game was DeSanto's first playing time since last summer.

After all the confusion and roadblocks, the game that DeSanto worked so hard to play -- twice in his life -- is the one that brings him peace.

"Baseball is my rehabilitation from the whole experience," he said. "I was fighting for this."

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008 or gerald.witt @news-record.com