Boy, 10, Turns Near-Tragedy Into Possible Life-Saving Invention

VERNON, CT - This weekend marks an entire year since Kyle Schambach endured the most difficult day of his life.

But the 10-year-old Vernon resident knows that he has turned near-tragedy into his finest hour as a student by taking top honors at the state invention convention and joining a busload of kids and their parents to go to Washington D.C. for the first-ever national student invention symposium.

Kyle’s invention was the Neuro Notice, a cellphone app that alerts family members and first responders about someone having a seizure. On June 5, 2015, he learned how valuable such a device can be.

Kyle was home that day. His mom, Lisa, was also in the house. The morning had come and gone.

Then came 3:30 and Lisa found Kyle, unresponsive. He was rushed to Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and did not really become coherent again until 10 that night. His dad, Jeff, a veteran of the Vernon Department of Public Works and a lieutenant in the local fire department said the situation was frightening.

“I have seen a lot,” he said. “But when it’s your kid and when you really don’t know what it is … scary is an understatement.”

Jeff Schambach said doctors ruled out epilepsy, but have not been able to pinpoint what type of seizure it was. They have termed what happened a “series of sparks,” Jeff said.

Then, it happened again, exactly four months later, at Center Road School in Vernon, where Kyle was a fourth-grader at the time and now a fifth-grader. His dad Jeff heard the call come in, sped to the scene, flew up the stairs and joined a teacher and para-educator in caring for Kyle until other first-responders arrived. Kyle was unresponsive and had a stomach condition.

Kyle said his memories of the incidents are “horrible.”

“I have some bad memories of those days,” he added.

But it was the first direction he headed when it came time for the invention convention proposals last winter.

“We were trying to come up with ideas,” Jeff Schambach said. “Then Kyle said why not try to create something to detect shaking.”

He then teamed up with his sister, Cassie, a student at the University of New Haven, to develop the app.

The Neuro notice impressed the judges at the Connecticut Invention Convention, a program that has been around for 33 years. The goal of the CIC is to “catch them early,” while making invention part of the STEM - science, technology, engineering and math curriculum.

And early was on Kyle’s mind when he made the Neuro Notice. He said his dad was lucky to have scanners and other means of alert as a member of the fire department and town staff in Vernon But other families could be left in the dark.

“It was such a horrible experience,” he said. “I never thought I could do something so positive from something that was so bad, but we worked in it and came up with the app that can let family members know what is happening.”

A new twist was the first-ever national invention convention. The state winners gathered at the state Capitol in Hartford, boarded a bus, and headed to the U.S. Patent Office in Washington to have their creations looked at by a national panel.

Kyle was not one of 13 Connecticut Residents chosen as a national winner, but his backstory was arguably the most interesting.

“It was not good a year ago,” he said. “But I think this part of it was a good experience.”

Young inventors have a year to apply for a patent and Jeff Schambach said the family is unsure about whether to pursue that.

Kyle said he liked the experience at the patent office - and the hotel in Virginia. A train buff, his room had a view of a rail yard complete with passenger, freight and Metro trains.

He is on seizure medication while doctors plus away at figuring out just what happened. But, feeling better, Kyle is already thinking about a year from now.

“Maybe I’ll invent something for trains,” he said. “But the whole family might not be involved this time because I am feeling much better.”

He continued, “Yeah, something with trains might be good.”

Photo Credit: Jeff Schambach