“I mean you never expect it, especially kids that young,” said 2021 graduate Aiden Pick, who revealed to WTKR that they were both on the high school soccer team. The young athlete’s death, believed to have been while playing basketball, comes a few months after three young athletes in the US died while playing the sport. On February 5, 15-year-old Preston Settles collapsed during a game at Brooks School in North Andover.
Settles stopped breathing during the game and was rushed to Lawrence General Hospital, where doctors shocked his heart eight times but couldn’t get it to start working again on its own. At the hospital, the teen was placed on an automated CPR machine and a breathing tube, several hours before Settles began breathing again.
He was then airlifted to Tufts Medical Center and placed on life support before being transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on Sunday, February 27. On February 8, Cameran Wheatley, a 17-year-old senior at Bremen High School, collapsed during a basketball game against Chicago High School around 9:20 pm before later dying at Christ Hospital.
The same day, Devonte Mumphrey collapsed and died during a Yellowjackets basketball game after going into sudden cardiac arrest. Devonte, 15, was a basketball standout who was nominated for Mr Texas Basketball Player of the Week after scoring 45 points in a single game in January. As a freshman, Mumphrey was named District Freshman of the Year.