Lawsuit blames Horry County Schools for boy’s football-related brain injury

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – The mother of a North Myrtle Beach Middle School student is suing the school district after her son suffered a traumatic brain injury playing football.

A lawsuit filed on Oct. 11 explains how the North Myrtle Beach Middle School student was a football player for the North Myrtle Beach Junior High B-team during the 2016 school year. On Oct. 20, 2016, the boy played in a football game.

“After the buzzer sounded ending the second quarter, [the boy] was hit by multiple players,” the lawsuit reads. The young athlete told his teammates and coaches that he was having a hard time keeping his balance after the hit.

In addition, the document states that the boy “exhibited outward signs of confusion, loss of balance, and visual impairment.” Nonetheless, the boy was put back into the football game following the halftime break.

During the third quarter of the game, the boy was “hit on multiple occasions, thereby seriously exacerbating his head trauma,” according to the court document. The player could be seen staggering down the sidelines and attempting to continue to play after the whistle, “but was at no point removed from the game.”

The suit explains that immediately after the Oct. 20, 2016 football game, the boy was diagnosed with a serious brain injury. He was unable to go to class due to short and long-term memory loss, the document claims.

The lawsuit claims that there was gross negligence on the school district’s part to “maintain a reasonable, safe environment for the children participating in football for the North Myrtle Beach Junior High B-team.”

Among other things, the document says the school district failed to recognize that the boy was showing signs of a head injury, remove him from the game, get immediate medical attention, and failed to hire, keep, and supervise a proper coaching staff.

The lawsuit also claims that the district did not provide a competent replacement trainer to fill in for the football team trainer who was attending a work conference in another state during the Oct. 20, 2016 game.

The boy’s family seeks “actual and consequential damages” to include payment of medical expenses incurred up to the current time and medical expenses for future treatment, and “further relief” as deemed by the court.