The death of a 16-year-old varsity high school football player after an on-the-field collision during a game was "a freak accident," the school's superintendent said at a news conference Thursday.
Steven Cohen, the superintendent of Shoreham-Wading River School District on Long Island's North Shore, offered his sympathies to the family of Tom Cutinella, who played linebacker and guard and was in his junior year.
"I think it was the result of a typical football play. It was just a freak accident," Cohen said. "You know, the game involves contact, and it was the result of a freak football play."
An average of 12 high school and college football players die every year from football-related accidents, according to a recent study in the American Journal of Sports Medicine. Concerns about hard hits have grown in recent years, and concussion management has gained renewed attention for the roughly 1 million boys who play high school football.
Two other deaths have come just recently.
Cornerback Demario Harris Jr. of Charles Henderson High School in Troy, Alabama, died Sunday after collapsing on the field Friday following a tackle.
According to AL.com, coach Brad McCoy said a neurologist told him that the player had ruptured an aneurysm in his brain. However, according to the report, the player's father, Demario Harris Sr., said in a Facebook post that the teen had suffered a brain hemorrhage caused by a hit in the game.
"He may have had a pre-existing condition, but there is no way to tell now," the post read, according to AL.com.
Linebacker Isaiah Langston of Rolesville High School in North Carolina died after collapsing during Friday's pregame warm-ups, family and the school district said Monday. Although he did not know the official cause of death, the player's brother Aijalon Langston told ABC 11 that it was related to a blood clot in the brain.
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