It was a high school gathering no one wanted to see: a memorial for 15-year-old Robert Gillon, a Florida teen who died earlier this month from possible cardiac arrest the morning after he complained of chest pain before going to football practice.
He’s one of at least seven teen football players who have died in the U.S. in August.
“It’s just one of those things you thought would never happen,” said Ryan Craddock, whose 13-year-old son Cohen was rushed to a hospital in West Virginia after hitting his head during football practice on Aug. 23.
“Just a standard play, there was nothing any different about it,” Craddock told CBS News. Â
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Cohen was wearing a helmet, but the injury caused his brain to swell, and he died the next day.
Caden Tellier, 16, died Aug. 23 after suffering a severe head injury during a game at his school in Alabama.
Leslie Noble, also 16, collapsed on a field in Baltimore and died Aug. 14 after possible heat stroke.
“If you look at the main causes of catastrophic problems in kids, we talk about heat, we talk about hearts, we talk about heads,” said Dr. Joseph Chorley, sports medicine chief at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
Chorley says parents should be proactive, talking to coaches and knowing who is supervising the players. They should also make sure “that those people are trained and have the necessary equipment if there’s a problem.”
Ryan Craddock is already taking action, urging schools to attach padded head protectors, called guardian caps, to football helmets.
“I don’t want to waste time,” Craddock said. “So that’s the reason why I’m trying to push to get guardian caps for these kids now…I do not want to see this happen to anybody else.”
