YOUNGSTOWN — Like most 5-year-olds, Jermaine Smith Jr. of Boardman enjoys running, playing sports, listening to music and spending time with siblings.

Ask his parents, Jermaine Smith Sr. and Monissa Redmond, about their son’s ability and desire to engage in these common activities, however, and they’ll say it’s anything but trivial.

“He was diagnosed at birth. When he came out, he was blue and struggling to breathe on his own,” said Redmond, who noted that her son was born with Taussig-Bing syndrome, an extremely rare cyanotic congenital heart malformation.

The normal flow of blood is from the left ventricle to the aorta and from the right ventricle to the pulmonary artery. With TBS, though, those flows are interrupted because the pulmonary artery and aorta are connected to and come out of the right ventricle, allowing only one path for the blood to travel. In addition, the anomaly often includes a hole in the septum, the muscular wall that separates the left and right ventricles, according to the Cleveland Clinic’s website.

Nothing separated Jermaine from the applause he heard for being featured and honored during the annual Tri-County Heart Walk on Saturday morning that began at Youngstown State University’s Watson and Tressel Training Site.

An estimated 1,000 people of all ages walked up to 2 miles individually or on teams during the event, a primary goal of which was to raise $250,000 to fight heart disease and stroke, America’s

No. 1 and No. 5 killers, respectively, noted Jessica Doudrick, communications director for the American Heart Association, which hosted the walk.

“In the tri-county area alone, heart disease and stroke claim 2,200 lives every year, but we are fighting back. In the last year alone in our area, we have trained more than 13,000 community members in CPR, reached more than 91,000 people through blood-pressure screenings and educated 22,000 kids in grades K-12 about healthy lifestyles,” Tracy Behnke, the local AHA’s executive director, said in a statement.

Forty-five teams — with names such as Vincenzo’s Victors, Hill, Barth & King Cares, High Voltage, Hot Heart and Howard Hanna real estate — took part, Doudrick said.

Shortly after his birth, Jermaine was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit, then was in an incubator before being admitted to Akron Children’s Hospital’s main campus in Akron, where he spent about two weeks in its NICU, Monissa said.

“They wheeled me downstairs to see him on life support,” she recalled.

A medical team was soon assembled to try to figure out what to do, since TBS is so rare. A few weeks later, the infant underwent an 11-hour surgery to save his life, Monissa and Jermaine Sr. said.

Despite that, on Jan. 3, 2018, the younger Jermaine underwent heart surgery, which was followed a few days later by a visit to Dr. Peter Vandekappelle, a cardiologist with ACH.

“He’s been great ever since. He’s able to go to school now” at Alta Head Start, Monissa said. “They saved him.”

Today, her son is energetic, happy and typical in nearly every respect, she continued.

The American Heart Association also was behind efforts to pass Tobacco 21, legislation Gov. Mike DeWine signed in July as part of the state budget bill. The law, which goes into effect Tuesday, will raise the legal age to buy tobacco products that include vape pens and electronic cigarettes from 18 to 21, Doudrick noted.

Money from the Tri-County Heart Walk will go mainly toward funding educational endeavors in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties regarding stroke and heart disease, as well as research and advocacy, she noted.

The event also offered free blood-pressure and body-mass index screenings, along with a Healthy for Good festival in which participants were exposed to healthful foods and could learn hands-on CPR, Doudrick said.

Acting as master of ceremonies was longtime disc jockey and broadcaster Thomas John.

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