WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas community college agreed under mounting pressure to an independent investigation into the heatstroke death last year of a football player who collapsed after the first day of conditioning practice.
Trustees for Garden City Community College voted Tuesday evening to authorize the outside probe into the death of 19-year-old Braeden Bradforth of Neptune, New Jersey. He was found unconscious outside his dorm room on Aug. 1 after practice and died that night at a hospital.
I am hoping that this will finally let me know my sons last moments, his mother, Joanne Atkins-Ingram, said Wednesday in phone interview from New Jersey. And I am hoping that through this investigation they will find out exactly what went wrong and how to correct it appropriately and to make sure that whatever changes need to be made, will be made.
The trustees move comes just two weeks after New Jerseys 12-member U.S. House delegation called for an independent investigation into Bradforths death. His mother and her attorney also were pushing for the probe, and had expressed concerns about the accuracy and thoroughness of an internal review.
A summary that the college released this month on its internal investigation said ample water was available to the players. But Greene said players have told her and media outlets that they werent allowed to drink water during the conditioning drills.
Nobody drank the water because, as I understand it, if they drank the water then they were done that they were no longer able to participate in the conditioning practice, which was very extreme and very strenuous, Greene said. They would be forced to participate in the exact same practice the following morning at 6 a.m.
The college has declined to respond to the players allegations, citing possible litigation.
