A Texas high school football player died Friday night after throwing a touchdown pass and then collapsing, the Beaumont Enterprise reported. West Orange-Stark quarterback Reggie Garrett collapsed on the sideline soon after throwing his second touchdown pass of the game Friday.
The 6-foot-2 senior arrived at the Memorial Hermann Baptist-Orange Hospital emergency room about 8:30 p.m. local time and was pronounced dead at 9:30 p.m., hospital spokeswoman Mary Poole said.
Poole said an autopsy had been ordered and the cause of Garrett's death was being investigated.
You just never know when your time is up.
BEAUMONT — Cardiac arrhythmia - a sudden acceleration of the heart followed by a sudden stop - remains a possible cause in the death of West Orange-Stark quarterback Reggie Garrett.
Garrett, 17, died Friday night after he collapsed on the sideline during West Orange-Stark's game against Jasper.
However, heart attack, enlarged heart and brain aneurysm have been ruled out, Orange County Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Derry Dunn said.
A preliminary autopsy could not confirm a specific reason for Garrett's death, Dunn said Monday.
"Dr. (Tommy) Brown didn't see anything unusual," Dunn said of the autopsy. "We were all expecting heart attack or aneurysm. Dr. Brown will do a microscopic study of the heart's muscle tissue. If nothing shows up, it will go to toxicology."
Results from the microscopic study could be released later this week, Dunn said.
Sudden death in athletes almost always can be attributed to a cardiac problem, said Dr. David Teuscher, a sports medicine specialist at the Beaumont Bone and Joint Institute. The condition usually is not detected in routine physical exams, he said, and often is fatal.
"The heart just goes beating too fast," Dunn said about cardiac arrhythmia. "We don't know the cause. Most people who die have no history or previous symptoms."
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Winter is Coming Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
