A high school football player’s injury during a game led to a family tragedy as his mother collapsed on the field next to him with a life-threatening aneurysm.
The incident happened Friday night at a game between Mountain View High School and The King’s Academy in Sunnyvale, Calif. According to The Mercury News, senior Dillon Daniels suffered a broken leg and dislocated ankle just before halftime.
Both Daniels’ parents rushed to his side on the field. His father, Dale, fainted as he knelt beside his son. Then, as Dale Daniels recovered, Lucinda Daniels collapsed on the field.
She was rushed to a local hospital and diagnosed with an aneurysm. She suffered a second aneurysm Saturday. According to Mountain View head coach Tim Lugo, Lucinda Daniels has no brain activity. A GoFundMe page set up on her behalf said she is not expected to survive.
The incident stunned onlookers, who described the scene as “surreal.”
“Mom was fine,” The King’s Academy athletic director Joe Maemone told The Mercury News. “She was on the phone. It looked like she was talking to family members, letting them know what was going on. Then Dad gets up. He was fine. Coherent.
“We’re standing around, thinking, ‘Lord, what is happening here?’ It was so surreal. You almost think this was just a bad dream that you’re going to wake up from.”
As of noon Tuesday, The Daniels Family GoFundMe page had raised $68,000 of its $100,000 goal.
Dillon Daniels is scheduled to undergo surgery Thursday. He and his brother, Brandon, a Mountain View teammate, attended practice Monday.
“They just want to be with their friends, and I can’t blame them for that,” Lugo said. “I think that we, as a community, have to give them some level of normalcy. And the family wants us to play.”
