In the State of Hockey, life is often lived one puck drop at a time.

Such is the case for the Howatt family—Clayton, Kristin, and their two daughters, Frannie and Luci. For years, Clayton has been the head coach for his daughters and their teammates, a role he cherished. But when he suffered cardiac arrest, Clayton, the Howatts, and their community faced an unknown future.

In June 2024, Clayton felt pain and discomfort in his chest, so he went to the hospital. While waiting to get checked in, he suffered cardiac arrest that required immediate lifesaving intervention. He underwent CPR for 17 minutes and was eventually placed on an extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which takes over for a person’s heart and lungs. He was then transferred to M Health Fairview University of Minnesota Medical Center, where he spent the next five days on ECMO—and in a coma.

“While he was on ECMO, I was sitting here trying to think, like, ‘How am I going to give [our kids] everything that he gives them?’” Kristin remembers. “And he’s not just that to our kids, he’s that to whole hockey programs and community members.”

Thankfully, the ECMO technology and the quick work of his care team allowed Clayton to not only survive but to return to his coaching duties just a few months later. As Clayton got back to his life, Kristin got a special tattoo in honor of the care team, including Andrea Elliot, MD, Ankit Verma, MD, and Jason Bartos, MD, PhD—and the machine—that saved her husband’s life.

“His machine was ECMO 32 and I was telling myself, ‘If my husband gets to come home to me, I’m going to go get a tattoo,’” Kristin says. “So then as soon as he came home, I literally went up to the tattoo parlor, like two blocks away, and got the tattoo. And it represents the whole team [that cared for Clayton].”

It’s because of people like Clayton that M Health Fairview recently opened the ECMO Intake Center at University of Minnesota Medical Center. The new space within the hospital will allow ECMO experts to care for up to 250 more people each year.

For Clayton, that means the world.

“It just made me feel so thankful that we live where we do, the fact that there’s all the pieces in place that made my outcome a possibility,” he says. “I want that to be a possibility for everyone.”