A 13-year-old football player in West Virginia died over the weekend after receiving a head injury in practice, his father said.
Madison Middle School defensive lineman Cohen Craddock was hurt while making a tackle on Friday. The eighth grader suffered from brain bleeding and swelling and was taken to a hospital, where he died Saturday, Ryan Craddock told news outlets.
After the collision, Cohen Craddock got back up, took a few steps, then lost consciousness. His oxygen level was low while he was in the ambulance, his father said.
“You wish it was a bad dream you could wake up from,” Ryan Craddock said.
In a statement, Boone County Schools Superintendent Matthew Riggs said counseling and other support services were being offered this week to Madison Middle School students, faculty and staff.
Madison Middle School Principal Shann Elkins said Cohen “was a wonderful, polite, and smart young man who was an important part of our school family.”
Ryan Craddock said he plans to work toward getting other players soft-shell helmet covers known as Guardian caps.
“I want to take the loss of my boy to try to protect the other guys,” he said. “I don’t want anybody else to go through what we are going through currently.”
Craddock’s death comes less than a week after an Alabama high school football player died at the age of 16 after suffering a head injury during a game.
Caden Tellier, a junior quarterback for John T. Morgan Academy, suffered a hit to the head following a tackle during the third quarter of his team’s game against Southern Academy in Selma, Ala.
He was transported to University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital by helicopter, but died of his injuries later in the evening.
“Our boy, Caden Tellier, has met Jesus face to face,” his family said in a statement on social media. “We appreciate all of your prayers and we covet them for the hard days ahead.
“Everyone who knows Caden has known kindness, generosity and love, and true to his nature, he is giving of himself one more time. Lives have been touched by the way he lived and now lives will be saved through his passing. We will walk out these next few days alongside him in his earthly body knowing that his spirit is rejoicing in heaven.”
According to the Daily Mail, Tellier’s death was the second fatal incident on a football field across south Alabama and fourth across the United States this month — making Craddock the fifth.