Tweet
This doesn't sound too good for Mizzou ... this would be tough to swallow if you were part of the young man's family.
O'Neal received no help at first
By Lori Shontz
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/23/2005
COLUMBIA, Mo. - When Missouri linebacker Aaron O'Neal collapsed July 12 after a voluntary workout at Faurot Field, a coach asked his teammates to move away and give an athletics trainer space to assist O'Neal, who had struggled during the workout.
Then, according to a report by Boone County medical examiner Valerie Rao, "The (trainer) approached and stated that there was nothing that could be done."
Consequently, no one called 911 until 3:08 p.m. - about 30 minutes later. In the interim, according to Rao's report, O'Neal stuttered, collapsed in the locker room, stopped talking and went so limp that a staff member and teammate, working together, could barely lift him.
The report concluded that O'Neal, 19, a Parkway North graduate, died that day under extremely rare, if not unprecedented, circumstances. Rao determined that O'Neal had contracted viral meningitis - a disease that is rarely fatal - and that the resulting swelling in his brain pushed on his spinal cord, which eventually caused his cardiovascular system to fail.
Advertisement
But for the O'Neal family, the unusual cause of death was not the issue. O'Neal's father, Lonnie, filed a lawsuit Tuesday afternoon against 14 employees of the Missouri athletics department, alleging that "had Aaron O'Neal been provided immediate and adequate medical care, he would have survived."
The lawsuit asks for damages in excess of $25,000 per defendant - a figure, Lonnie O'Neal's attorney Bob Blitz said, that will be used to classify the case because Missouri law prohibits asking for a specific amount.
"Negligence is absolutely obvious in this case," Blitz said.
Missouri sports information director Chad Moller said the university had no comment. Rao declined to speculate on whether O'Neal would have lived if he had received medical care earlier, saying her field is pathology, not emergency or sports medicine. Fourteen people are named as defendants, Blitz said, because the university itself can't be sued due to its protection under governmental immunity.
The 14 employees are athletics trainers Greg Nagel, Eric McDonnell, Alfred Castillo and Rex Sharp, who is also Missouri's director of sports medicine; strength and conditioning coaches Shannon Turley, Pat Ivey, Josh Stoner, Scott Bird, Shayne McKenzie and Antwan Floyd; associate director of sports medicine Pat Beckmann; head football coach Gary Pinkel; athletics director Mike Alden; and director of football operations Mark Alnutt.
The lawsuit alleges that the employees failed to perform a variety of duties, among them assuring that the football program's emergency action plan was effective, improperly evaluating O'Neal's condition and "allowing the strength and conditioning coaches to verbally abuse and threaten Aaron O'Neal and order him to continue to participate in the drills after Aaron O'Neal showed signs of distress."
Speaking after practice, Pinkel said, "I was just informed that I was named in a lawsuit, so responsibly I'm not going to in any way say what happened in the event on that day, and I wasn't there anyway. I might add, though, that I have a lot of respect and I care, and (Lonnie) O'Neal is a good man. He's got to do what he's got to do."
Rao's report, however, recounts in painstaking detail what happened during and after the voluntary conditioning workout. She interviewed 10 of the other 11 players at practice that day, plus every member of the athletics staff, one by one. She identified none by name.
The conditioning practice was divided into six stations, and O'Neal repeated drills at the fifth and sixth stations because he was not participating at full effort. During one bear crawl, for instance, " 'he was on his hands and knees rather than on his hands and feet.' This was extremely unusual for Aaron."
When the drills were completed, the players stretched. Participants described O'Neal as "unsteady" and "wobbling." Then, as the coach made announcements, O'Neal leaned on a teammate's shoulder.
"He was heard to say, 'Oh gosh,' and then went to the grounds 'slowly' first on his hands, and then on his knees and finally lay down on the turf," Rao wrote. "This is an 'unwritten' violation of an 'unwritten' rule ... Aaron has never done this before, and this was highly unusual for him. Aaron stated to two people on the field, one a player and one a coach, that he could not see and that his vision was blurred."
At that point, the coaches moved the players so an athletics trainer could evaluate O'Neal, and nothing was done. O'Neal was helped off the field by a teammate, and upon arriving in the locker room, his condition worsened. He collapsed and said he was too exhausted to get up.
"A staff person stated that 'he looked like he was passed out or drunk,'" Rao wrote.
"O'Neal was not talking. A player poured water on him, noted that O'Neal's tongue was white and gave him water to drink. O'Neal spit it out.
"They tried to slap his face to get him up," Rao wrote. "He was 'deep breathing' at this time. He was 'gasping and moaning' and now the staff person and player tried to get him up but could not because Aaron was limp and could not assist them in picking him up off the ground where he lay."
At this point, the staff member - identified in the lawsuit as Stoner, an assistant strength and conditioning coach - convinced a landscape truck driver to help. Wrote Rao, "With a great deal of difficulty (Aaron kept slipping through their arms as they tried to lift him up off the ground), they put Aaron in the truck." He was transported to the Tom Taylor Complex, which is across the street from Faurot Field, rather than University Hospital, which is across the street on the other side.
Upon arrival at the Taylor building, O'Neal was unconscious. He had a weak pulse, then none. A staff member decided to use a portable defibrillator, but the monitor said "no shock advised." Only at this point, according to the report, was 911 called.
O'Neal was pronounced dead at University Hospital at 4:05 p.m., about two-and-a-half hours after the workout started.
"All they had to do was get him to a hospital," Blitz said. "If he had received medical care of any sort, he'd be alive today."
Blitz also noted that Rao is a University of Missouri of employee; she is a professor of forensic pathology at the university, and the university contracts with Boone County to provide medical examiner services. "That puts the whole autopsy report into question," he said, adding that he didn't know why an independent investigator was not hired.
Rao discounted any suggestion of a conflict of interest.
According to the autopsy report, O'Neal was not dehydrated. He was not using anabolic steroids or any product with ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, two substances that have been linked to sudden deaths in athletes.
Blitz said that before filing suit, the family exchanged letters with Missouri, asking the university to accept responsibility for O'Neal's death, both by apologizing publicly and with a financial settlement of which he said, "we said we would be reasonable." The university, he said, "expressed their sorrow, but denied any responsibility."
O'Neal received no help at first
By Lori Shontz
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/23/2005
COLUMBIA, Mo. - When Missouri linebacker Aaron O'Neal collapsed July 12 after a voluntary workout at Faurot Field, a coach asked his teammates to move away and give an athletics trainer space to assist O'Neal, who had struggled during the workout.
Then, according to a report by Boone County medical examiner Valerie Rao, "The (trainer) approached and stated that there was nothing that could be done."
Consequently, no one called 911 until 3:08 p.m. - about 30 minutes later. In the interim, according to Rao's report, O'Neal stuttered, collapsed in the locker room, stopped talking and went so limp that a staff member and teammate, working together, could barely lift him.
The report concluded that O'Neal, 19, a Parkway North graduate, died that day under extremely rare, if not unprecedented, circumstances. Rao determined that O'Neal had contracted viral meningitis - a disease that is rarely fatal - and that the resulting swelling in his brain pushed on his spinal cord, which eventually caused his cardiovascular system to fail.
Advertisement
But for the O'Neal family, the unusual cause of death was not the issue. O'Neal's father, Lonnie, filed a lawsuit Tuesday afternoon against 14 employees of the Missouri athletics department, alleging that "had Aaron O'Neal been provided immediate and adequate medical care, he would have survived."
The lawsuit asks for damages in excess of $25,000 per defendant - a figure, Lonnie O'Neal's attorney Bob Blitz said, that will be used to classify the case because Missouri law prohibits asking for a specific amount.
"Negligence is absolutely obvious in this case," Blitz said.
Missouri sports information director Chad Moller said the university had no comment. Rao declined to speculate on whether O'Neal would have lived if he had received medical care earlier, saying her field is pathology, not emergency or sports medicine. Fourteen people are named as defendants, Blitz said, because the university itself can't be sued due to its protection under governmental immunity.
The 14 employees are athletics trainers Greg Nagel, Eric McDonnell, Alfred Castillo and Rex Sharp, who is also Missouri's director of sports medicine; strength and conditioning coaches Shannon Turley, Pat Ivey, Josh Stoner, Scott Bird, Shayne McKenzie and Antwan Floyd; associate director of sports medicine Pat Beckmann; head football coach Gary Pinkel; athletics director Mike Alden; and director of football operations Mark Alnutt.
The lawsuit alleges that the employees failed to perform a variety of duties, among them assuring that the football program's emergency action plan was effective, improperly evaluating O'Neal's condition and "allowing the strength and conditioning coaches to verbally abuse and threaten Aaron O'Neal and order him to continue to participate in the drills after Aaron O'Neal showed signs of distress."
Speaking after practice, Pinkel said, "I was just informed that I was named in a lawsuit, so responsibly I'm not going to in any way say what happened in the event on that day, and I wasn't there anyway. I might add, though, that I have a lot of respect and I care, and (Lonnie) O'Neal is a good man. He's got to do what he's got to do."
Rao's report, however, recounts in painstaking detail what happened during and after the voluntary conditioning workout. She interviewed 10 of the other 11 players at practice that day, plus every member of the athletics staff, one by one. She identified none by name.
The conditioning practice was divided into six stations, and O'Neal repeated drills at the fifth and sixth stations because he was not participating at full effort. During one bear crawl, for instance, " 'he was on his hands and knees rather than on his hands and feet.' This was extremely unusual for Aaron."
When the drills were completed, the players stretched. Participants described O'Neal as "unsteady" and "wobbling." Then, as the coach made announcements, O'Neal leaned on a teammate's shoulder.
"He was heard to say, 'Oh gosh,' and then went to the grounds 'slowly' first on his hands, and then on his knees and finally lay down on the turf," Rao wrote. "This is an 'unwritten' violation of an 'unwritten' rule ... Aaron has never done this before, and this was highly unusual for him. Aaron stated to two people on the field, one a player and one a coach, that he could not see and that his vision was blurred."
At that point, the coaches moved the players so an athletics trainer could evaluate O'Neal, and nothing was done. O'Neal was helped off the field by a teammate, and upon arriving in the locker room, his condition worsened. He collapsed and said he was too exhausted to get up.
"A staff person stated that 'he looked like he was passed out or drunk,'" Rao wrote.
"O'Neal was not talking. A player poured water on him, noted that O'Neal's tongue was white and gave him water to drink. O'Neal spit it out.
"They tried to slap his face to get him up," Rao wrote. "He was 'deep breathing' at this time. He was 'gasping and moaning' and now the staff person and player tried to get him up but could not because Aaron was limp and could not assist them in picking him up off the ground where he lay."
At this point, the staff member - identified in the lawsuit as Stoner, an assistant strength and conditioning coach - convinced a landscape truck driver to help. Wrote Rao, "With a great deal of difficulty (Aaron kept slipping through their arms as they tried to lift him up off the ground), they put Aaron in the truck." He was transported to the Tom Taylor Complex, which is across the street from Faurot Field, rather than University Hospital, which is across the street on the other side.
Upon arrival at the Taylor building, O'Neal was unconscious. He had a weak pulse, then none. A staff member decided to use a portable defibrillator, but the monitor said "no shock advised." Only at this point, according to the report, was 911 called.
O'Neal was pronounced dead at University Hospital at 4:05 p.m., about two-and-a-half hours after the workout started.
"All they had to do was get him to a hospital," Blitz said. "If he had received medical care of any sort, he'd be alive today."
Blitz also noted that Rao is a University of Missouri of employee; she is a professor of forensic pathology at the university, and the university contracts with Boone County to provide medical examiner services. "That puts the whole autopsy report into question," he said, adding that he didn't know why an independent investigator was not hired.
Rao discounted any suggestion of a conflict of interest.
According to the autopsy report, O'Neal was not dehydrated. He was not using anabolic steroids or any product with ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, two substances that have been linked to sudden deaths in athletes.
Blitz said that before filing suit, the family exchanged letters with Missouri, asking the university to accept responsibility for O'Neal's death, both by apologizing publicly and with a financial settlement of which he said, "we said we would be reasonable." The university, he said, "expressed their sorrow, but denied any responsibility."
Comment