[LINK] AJC Tyler Davis, a 15-year-old
Rockdale County football player, collapsed between 5 and 6 p.m. on his
way to the locker room after practicing Monday. He died early Tuesday at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at
Egleston. The cause of death was heat stroke, according to Dr. Stephen
Boyle, the Rockdale County coroner. HS football practice starts today, and it's expected to be HOT. GT practice starts tomorrow (Thursday). So far this summer, there have been 32 days over 90 degrees (far more than last year).
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"He walked off the field
on his own power, then collapsed on his way to the locker room," Ginn
said. "That's when they called 911."
According to Georgia High School Association rules, teams can start
mandatory football practices in shorts today, nearly two weeks later
than when practices started last year. The GHSA moved back the start of
the season, and the opening of fall practices, because of heat
concerns, said GHSA assistant executive director Gary Phillips. Phillips said he planned to speak with Ralph Swearngin, the GHSA
executive director, about the possibility of the association regulating
practices in high temperatures. Ginn said Rockdale's practice Monday consisted of passing drills,
and the players weren't wearing football pads. He said the county will
investigate the death and the school's policies of practicing in heat.
Highs Monday were in the mid-90s. [From another article] The football players lifted weights indoors for about an hour before
heading out to the field to perform running and passing drills. Water
was available to them throughout the training session, and they were
outside with frequent breaks from about 5 to 6:45 p.m., he said. ... Boyle estimated that Tyler was over 6 feet tall and nearly 300 pounds. "It really just is a bad accident. It's not common, but it sort of
happens out of the blue," Boyle said. "It can happen to little skinny
kids as well as big guys." Tyler is the second football player to die while playing for Carter.
In 1997 while Carter was the head coach at Towers High in DeKalb
County, Vinson Freeman Jr., a sophomore, had a violent seizure and
collapsed on the field while running wind sprints during practice. A
nurse performed CPR. Temperatures were in the low 70s, and heat was not
believed to be a factor.
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