High school football player dies; third death in NJ
Ryne Doughtery
The 16-year-old junior linebacker had suffered a brain hemorrhage after making a tackle during a game on Monday. Ryne Doughtery died Wednesday night. The fatal injury occurred three weeks after he had sustained a concussion during a practice, the New York Times reported.
Although Ryne had been cleared by doctors to play, he told a teammate that he still had headaches. Judith Weiss, interim principal at Montclair High, said she heard about this during a grief-counseling session with students.
Ryne is the third teenage football player in New Jersey to die this season. Douglas Morales, 17, suffered a head injury from a tackle during practice, lingered in a four-day coma and died Aug. 26. The previous day, 13-year-old Sean Fisher collapsed on the field after completing a 15-minute warm-up. The medical examiner’s office said that the cause of death was an undetected heart ailment.
Last year, three teenage football players died because of a head injury during a game or practice were reported, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina. This year, at least four have died.
Two of those deaths were in N.C., in which the players died after being tackled. A third died a day after a football scrimmage but the cause of death has not yet been released; he reportedly had a history of heat exhaustion symptoms. More details are available from a previous Minor Troubles posting.
Last week, the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s medical council decided that student athletes with any concussion-like symptoms wouldn’t be allowed to play until a medical doctor has cleared them.
But some say a change in attitude is also needed. Dr. Fred Mueller told WTVD News that football has a mindset in which athletes think that “if you’re injured, you play tough.” “A coach has to tell his kids that it’s okay for you come up to me and say, ‘I’ve got a headache, or I don’t feel good today, or I’m nauseous” without being called weak, said Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research.
