August 26, 2024
A high school quarterback died after he was tackled and hit his head during a game in Alabama, officials said Monday, in the latest gridiron tragedy to befall a young player.
Caden Tellier, 16, was injured Friday during the third quarter while competing for John T. Morgan Academy, a private school in Selma, as the Senators played host to Southern Academy.
Early in third period, Tellier was running with the ball when a Southern defender wrapped around his waist, and the QB nearly wiggled free before being tackled at the ankles, Dallas County Coroner William Dailey told NBC News on Monday.
“He went down, landing on his elbow and his head hit the ground,” Dailey said. “Now, according to everybody there, this was not a violent hit and his head did not strike the ground violently.”
Tellier “started staggering” toward his sideline and as trainers administered concussion protocol, the QB threw up, “went unresponsive” and “never was able to speak again,” the coroner added.
He was rushed to Vaughan Regional Medical Center in Selma and airlifted to UAB Hospital where he died, the coroner said.
A state medical examiner will rule on cause of death. But Dailey said the preliminary finding is that internal bleeding in the brain, caused by that fall, led to Tellier’s passing.
The player’s mother, Arsella Slagel Tellier, said in a Facebook post on Saturday: “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,” she said.
A GoFundMe page to cover funeral expenses, which has already raised $75,000 of its $100,000 target, said Tellier died from a “traumatic brain injury.” The GoFundMe page also mentions that Tellier was an organ donor.
The teenager’s father, Jamie Tellier, said he’s been heartened by well wishers from across the country.
Even though his son only lived for 16 years, the grieving dad said Caden was deeply religious and enjoyed nearly every moment of that time.
“There are some people that don’t get to do a lot of things in 80 years of a lifetime and my son did everything in 16 years,” the elder Tellier told mourners at a memorial service. “He lived a life, he laughed, he got to do everything he wanted to do, he accomplished so much (of what) he loved.”