Georgia Boy Suffers Heat Stroke, Brain Damage During Football Practice

Eric Chaney
Published: July 22,2016



 
A 12-year-old boy is fighting for his life in an Atlanta hospital after collapsing during a football practice last week.
According to WSB-TV, Johnny Tolbert was doing was doing conditioning drills at Welcome All Park in southern Fulton County at around 7:30 p.m. last Thursday when he passed out. Tolbert was taken to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston, where doctors told the family they were “pretty confident” that Tolbert was suffering from heat stroke.
“It’s definitely on the brink of being fatal,” Tolbert’s aunt Razhonge Landers told WSB. “We’ll know within 24 hours.”
(MORE: Four Things Extreme Heat Does To Your Body)

Johnny Tolbert collapsed last Thursday evening during football practice.
(Screenshot via WSB-TV)

Tolbert, who was playing in the Welcome All Panthers recreational football league for the first year, has no history of seizures. Doctors confirmed to WSB that the child suffered brain damage from the incident.
According to weather.com meteorologist Tom Moore, Atlanta has seen temperatures at or above 90 degrees for 29 of the last 31 days, and the average temperature this month has been 3.3 degrees above average for July.
However, Moore says, storms that rolled through the area on the evening of the incident knocked temperatures down to about 79 degrees at 7 p.m.
The league's football commissioner told WSB that he's saddened by what has happened and is working to keep parents more aware on how to hydrate their children, and asked coaches to keep players hydrated at least four times per practice.
Landers told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that she isn’t blaming anyone, but doesn’t want this to happen to another kid.
“You need to know what procedures to take if a child passes out from heat,” she said.
Heat stroke occurs when the body temperature climbs above 103 degrees, the CDC says, and is a serious medical emergency. The victim should be moved to a cooler environment as soon as possible to try to lower core body temperature. This can also be done with cool cloths or even immersion in cool water, but the CDC says a person suffering from heat stroke should not be given fluids.
Tolbert’s family told WSB they are hoping for a miracle.
“We're just praying for healing and total recovery,” Landers said. “We're just leaning on God for that instead of pointing fingers.”
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