Hotter summers are making high school football a fatal game for some players

BRANDON, Mississippi (AP) — Soon after Ashanta Laster reached the hospital, she was ushered into the emergency room where she saw doctors performing CPR on her teenage son.

Laster had gotten a call that 17-year-old Phillip Laster Jr., a lineman who played for a top Mississippi high school, had collapsed on the field during an August 2022 practice. At the time, the family says the heat index was 102 degrees (38.9 degrees Celsius) on the football field.

“They kept compressing his chest trying to bring him back. No response, no response. Never a heartbeat,” said Laster, recalling how she dropped her purse, called her husband and started praying.

“I said I was going to call all the prayer warriors and bring my son back. I wanted him to come back,” she continued. “At that point, it was just an unbelievable moment. I can’t believe my son was gone. I could not believe it ... I was in a state of shock ... that he died ... at football practice.”

The death of Laster underscores the dangers facing high school football players, mostly in the Southeast, who are collapsing and dying in late summer at the start of season. Players are most at risk of suffering heat-related illnesses due to searing temperatures and high humidity. Those conditions have worsened in recent decades due to climate change, with extremely hot days becoming more frequent since 1970 in 88% of locations nationwide analyzed by Climate Central, a nonprofit science research group.

At least 58 players have died from exertional heat stroke between 1992 and 2024, according to the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut, and thousands more are sickened each year. This summer has been especially bad, with five high school players dying since July of suspected heat-related illnesses, including 14-year-old Semaj Wilkins who collapsed during drills last month at his Alabama high school practice.

“I just want to know what really happened that day. What was he doing? From the autopsy and the doctor’s standpoint, what did y’all see what was going on? You know, I just want answers,” said Wilkins' mother, Regina Adams.

One study found that high school football players are 11 times more likely to suffer heat illnesses than all other sports combined.

Experts believe football players are more vulnerable because they wear heavy equipment that traps heat and have bigger body sizes that produce more heat, especially offensive and defensive lineman who can can weigh upwards of 300 pounds. They also may not yet be fully acclimated to working out in summer conditions, sometimes play on artificial turf which increases the heat and may have underlying health conditions.

“We know that heat stroke is the most severe version of heat illness, is the only one that is life threatening and also know that it uniquely afflicting football players specifically at high school and collegiate levels,” said Rebecca Stearns, the Institute's chief operating officer, adding that their research found that 94% of cases over the past four decades of heat stroke in sports involved football players.

Another driver of these deaths is the culture of football, where coaches have long drilled into players the idea of playing through pain and pushing through adversity. That is starting to change, but many high schools still lack necessary equipment and protocols which experts said can reduce heat-related illnesses and prevent deaths.

“There are a lot of athletic programs that are not prepared for traumatic injuries. They’re not prepared for sudden cardiac arrest, and they’re not prepared for exertional heat stroke,” said Laurie Giordano, who formed a foundation to raise awareness about heat illnesses after her son Zach Martin, a high school football player in Florida, died in 2017. The family reached a nearly $1 million settlement with the school district over his death.

“These things are happening more and more so you know they need to be prepared,” she continued. “They need to know signs and symptoms. They need to know how to react. They need to have and practice their emergency action plan.”

Stearns said most states are not doing enough to protect kids — a problem made worse by the fact there are no federal heat policies for high school sports. Heat policies are sometimes set by state high school athletic associations or by state or local governments.

Only a quarter of states have comprehensive heat acclimatization policies, Stearns said, which regulate rest periods, phasing in of equipment and numbers of training sessions a day. Only a quarter have polices requiring the use of wet-bulb globe temperature — considered the best way to measure heat stress since it includes ambient air temperature, humidity, direct sunlight and wind — to determine whether its too hot to practice.

Less than a third of states require cold water immersion tubs on site — one of the best ways to treat a player suffering heat illness.

Many school districts also lack athletic trainers, the person best qualified to spot and treat heat illness and pull a sick player off the field. According to the latest data from the Athletic Training Locations and Services Project, a joint initiative of the Institute and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, about a third of high school athletes lack access to athletic training services.

Others lack an emergency action plan, which lays out steps staff need to take if a player falls sick, with only 32 states requiring them, Stearns said. Complicating safety efforts are resources, with poorest districts often lacking the means to afford protective equipment and athletic trainers.

The best policies, like those in Georgia, Louisiana, New Jersey and New Hampshire, include heat acclimatization guidance, weather-based modifications, availability of cold water immersion tubs and protocol for treating heat illness including cooling a player before transporting them to the hospital.

The case of Laster illustrates some the fatal mistakes his family believes happened and ultimately led to his death. Mississippi's heat policy at the time fell short in several areas, including requiring no emergency action plan nor wet-bulb globe temperature monitoring.

According to a federal lawsuit filed in January against the Rankin County School District, the first practice was held on the hottest part of the day and didn’t give players any time to adapt. They went right into an intense conditioning. When Laster began showing symptoms of heat illness, including dizziness, disorientation and nausea, coaches pushed him to keep going until he threw up and passed out.

The school allegedly had nothing on the field to treat Laster’s condition nor any plan to address the emergency, choosing to put him in the back of a hot pickup truck, “which would have been hotter than the surrounding area.” Their “grossly inadequate heat prevention and response” contributed to his death, said the suit.

“When this kid goes down on the field, it should have gotten everybody’s attention. They should have wanted to get this kid hydrated, get him into a place that was going to help him,” said Laster’s father, Phillip Laster Sr., who was returning home from his job as an interstate truck driver when he got word of his son was in the hospital.

“But to put him inside the back of a pickup truck, does that really help or does it hurt the process?” continued the teen's father. “It just seemed like some things happened that were passive concerning him, and especially when it could cost him his life and, indeed, did.”

The family is being represented by firm of Benjamin Crump, a prominent civil rights lawyer.

The district did not respond to questions about Laster’s death. In a court filing, it denied the allegations and said that Laster’s “alleged injuries were not caused by a policy or custom of the defendant” without providing details.

An autopsy confirmed that Laster collapsed due to the heat but said the cause of death was cardiac arrythmia due to a gene mutation - a finding the family disputes, saying their son was previously healthy.

Another high school player who died, Remy Hidalgo, illustrates how things can go horribly wrong even when it’s not the hottest time of the year. In a lawsuit against several parties including the Livingston Parish School Board in Louisiana, lawyers for Ashley Roberson, Hildalgo’s mom, blame the district for his death on Sept. 18, 2020 due to heat stroke. He collapsed at practice and died several days later from multiple organ failure caused by heat stroke at a New Orleans hospital.

The district had coaches and athletic trainers at practice but failed to have “all medical equipment and gear necessary” to hold safe football practice and failed to follow “rules and regulations regarding exposure of students to unsafe conditions,” according to the lawsuit.

Roberson’s lawyer Jerome Moroux said the district also failed to identify potential risks to bigger players like Hildago and to properly acclimate them — since practice had been delayed several weeks due to the pandemic. Hildago collapsed a day after the team started practicing in full pads.

"After four years, there is still lots of healing and dealing with the loss," said Roberson, who has started a foundation to donate cold immersion tubs and other safety equipment to football programs. This year, she had no plans for the anniversary of her son's death.

A spokesman for the school district had no comment on the lawsuit.

Hildago’s death took a familiar path.

Soon after he died, there was an outpouring of community support, a vigil at his high school in his honor and eventually a new law aimed at improving school safety. Dubbed the Remy Hidalgo Act, it requires all high school sports to have emergency action plans. Georgia and Florida also enacted heat polices in the wake of high profile deaths and a federal bill was inspired by the death of a college player in Maryland.

Louisiana’s heat policy was on display the other day at practice for the Catholic High School football team in Baton Rouge.

Players crowded around a hydration station to drink water and cool themselves off as temperatures reached into the 90s (32 to 38 Celsius). Athletic trainer Armand Daigle monitored a wet-bulb globe temperature gauge. Players could also dunk their elbows into ice chests and Daigle wiped their necks with cold towels.

“Once we get into July, August, September, the hottest times of year, we have to go about as safely as we possibly can in terms of our athletes and making sure that we can make decisions upon how long we practice, if we do practice, how long we break to make sure that they regain the appropriate amount of recovery they need,” Daigle said. “If it’s too hot, we have to say, hey, let’s cut a practice short that day. Coaches are all on board.”

About 12 miles (19 kilometers) away at Baker High School in Baker, Coach James Dartez has fewer resources but the same attitude about safety.

The district lacks funding for an athletic trainer and Dartez relies on a table full of water coolers to help players beat the heat. Since taking over as coach last year, Dartez began using a wet-bulb globe temperature, instituting regular water breaks and says that if a player “tells me that he’s not feeling well, he’s lightheaded, we send him straight inside.”

“I love football and I know what football has done for me, but I love my kids way more than this game,” Dartez, speaking on a day when lighting postponed practice, said. “I will never compromise the health and safety of my one of my players.”

The hotter conditions and the deaths of several footballers are not lost on Baker players, several of whom talked about experiencing heat-related symptoms during practice or seeing others become dizzy or throw up.

Among them was defensive end Deauntrey Singleton, a junior who quit two years ago because he “couldn’t deal with the heat." He came back last year after several teammates urged him to reconsider but admits the heat still stresses him out.

“It’s scary because that could be you some day if you don’t take care of yourself,” he said.

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Members of the Baker High football team wait out a weather delay at practice in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Keiland Burns, left, wears a protective pad that reads "call your mom" as teammate Jamie Allen, right, helps him with his gear at the start of football practice at Baker High in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Members of the Baker High football team huddle at practice in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Members of the Baker High football team warm up at practice in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Equipment sits on the field as the Baker High football teams readies for practice in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Members of the Baker High football team warm up at practice in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Members of the Baker high football team leave the locker room to take to the field for practice in Baker, La., Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Families wave and take photos as members of the Clinton High School freshman football team arrive for a game at Brandon High in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Members of the Brandon High freshman football team warm up before a game against Clinton High in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

A photo sits on the dining table in the Laster family home, showing Phillip Laster Jr. coming up to the altar and bowing his head to accept Christ, a few months before his passing, at St. Paul Church of God in Christ, in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Ashanta Laster, left, shares photos of her son Phillip Laster Jr., with his friend Antwan Agee, at the Laster home in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Phillip Laster Sr., right, shares photos of his son Phillip Laster Jr., with his friends Antwan Agee, and K.J. Hill, left, at the Laster home in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Phillip Laster Sr. and his wife Ashanta Laster hold a football signed by teammates of their son Phillip Laster Jr., in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, that was given to them on senior night after Laster Jr.'s passing. A portrait of Laster Jr. is behind them. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Members of the Brandon High freshman football team warm up before a game against Clinton High in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Phillip Laster Sr. holds a football in Brandon, Miss., Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, signed by teammates of his son Phillip Laster Jr., that was given to him on senior night after his passing. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

An Israeli airstrike hit Beirut on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 60 others, Lebanese health officials said. The strike, the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months, came shortly after Hezbollah pounded northern Israel with 140 rockets.

Hezbollah said that its attacks had targeted several Israeli military sites along the border with Katyusha rockets, including multiple air defense bases as well as the headquarters of an Israeli armored brigade they said they’d struck for the first time.

In Gaza, Palestinian authorities said 15 people were killed overnight in multiple Israeli attacks.

Israel maintains it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.

Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The ministry does not differentiate between fighters and civilians in its count but says a little over half of those killed were women and children.

Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Hezbollah began striking Israel almost immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war. They have come close to a full-blown war on several occasions.

Here's the latest:

An Israeli airstrike hit Beirut on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding nearly 60 others in the first such Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital in months.

The Israeli strike on Beirut’s crowded southern suburbs hit during rush hour, as people headed home from work and children left school. Local networks broadcast footage that showed at least two buildings completely flattened and the main street ravaged in Dahiyeh, just kilometers from downtown Beirut where Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group holds sway.

An Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes security matters said the strike targeted Ibrahim Akil, a senior Hezbollah military official. It was not immediately clear whether he was killed.

The strike came after Hezbollah pounded Israel with 140 rockets earlier Friday and tensions threaten to spill into all-out war.

The White House says a video showing Israeli soldiers pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from rooftops during a raid in the northern part of the occupied West Bank “deeply disturbing.”

An AP journalist in the town of Qabatiya witnessed three soldiers push the bodies off the roofs of adjacent multi-story buildings, sending them falling out of view.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday that “it clearly would depict abhorrent and egregious behavior by professional soldiers” if the video is found to be authentic.

"We reached out immediately to our Israeli counterparts about it, and we pressed them for more details,” he said. “They have assured us that they’re going to investigate this, and that there will be proper accountability if it’s warranted. And we’re going to be very eager to see what the IDF investigation finds. And as always, we expect that investigation be done thoroughly and transparently.”

The Israeli military called it “a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers,” the military said in a statement, using the acronym it goes by.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration continues to hold on to hope that surging tensions between Israel and Hezbollah won’t escalate into all-out war following Israel Defense Forces air strike Friday near Beirut.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said he was unaware of Israel providing the U.S. any forewarning ahead of the operation.

“We still believe that there is time and space for a diplomatic solution,” Kirby said. “We think that that is the best way forward. War is not inevitable up there at the Blue Line. And we’re going to continue to do everything we can to prevent it.”

The Israeli strikes near Beirut followed two waves of deadly attacks earlier this week of hundreds of hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants exploding. The sophisticated sabotage operations are widely believed to be carried out by Israel.

The White House has declined to publicly comment on the electronic device attacks beyond saying the U.S. was not involved.

Palestinian authorities say 15 people were killed overnight in the Gaza Strip in multiple Israeli attacks.

An airstrike early Friday morning in Gaza City hit a family home, killing six people including an unknown number of children, Gaza’s Civil Defense said. Another person was killed in Gaza City when a strike hit a group of people on a street.

In Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza City, another person was killed and several others injured when a vehicle was hit by an Israeli strike, the Civil Defense said.

Late Thursday, six more people were killed in a strike that hit a home in the center of Gaza City, while another was killed in Beit Lahya, north of Gaza City.

Israel maintains it only targets militants and accuses Hamas and other armed groups of endangering civilians by operating in residential areas. The military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, had no immediate comment.

The war has caused vast destruction and displaced about 90% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.

Israel's foreign ministry said Friday it submitted two legal briefs in response to the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants against the country's leaders.

The court’s prosecutor is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as top Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other Hamas leaders. One of them was since assassinated in what was believed to be an Israeli strike.

The foreign ministry said it has submitted two legal briefs challenging the court’s jurisdiction to arrest Israeli leaders and claiming the court did not provide Israel the opportunity to investigate itself before requesting the warrants.

“No other democracy with an independent and respected legal system like that which exists in Israel has been treated in this prejudicial manner by the Prosecutor,” wrote Foreign Ministry spokesperson Oren Marmorstein on the social media platform X. He said Israel remained “steadfast in its commitment to the rule of law and justice” and would continue to protect its citizens against militancy.

Israel is not a party to the court. Rights groups say the country has struggled to investigate itself in the past. Netanyahu has brushed off calls for a state investigation into the failings that led to the Oct. 7 attack.

BAGHDAD — A leader of an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia was killed Friday in a strike in Syria, a war monitor and a militia official said.

Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah group — which is different from the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — said in a statement that Abu Haidar al-Khafaji was killed “while performing his duties as a security advisor in Damascus.”

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had earlier reported that a leader in Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah group was killed and another person injured in a drone strike on the car they were traveling in on the road to the Damascus airport.

An official with an Iraqi militia confirmed that a car carrying a group of militia members was struck in Damascus, killing one person and injuring three others. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

There was no comment from Israeli officials on the strike. Israel frequently strikes Iranian and Iran-linked groups in Syria but rarely acknowledges the strikes.

Tensions have heightened in the region following a wave of apparently remotely detonated explosions in Lebanon targeting pagers and walkie talkies belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah. The attacks, widely blamed on Israel, which has not commented on them, killed at least 37 people - including two children - and wounded about 3,000.

— By Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad

BEIRUT — Israel’s military killed two Hezbollah members who were planting explosives along the border over the weekend, Israel’s military and an official with a Lebanese group said.

The official with a Lebanese group said the two members of the militant group were killed Sunday and their bodies were taken by Israeli troops because they were too close to the fence along the tense frontier. The official spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

On Thursday, Israel’s military released a video it said was taken by one of the fighters showing the militants coming under fire. The military said that the two fighters were killed by Israeli troops as they tried to plant an improvised explosive device near a military post.

In the days following the tense border interaction, thousands of devices exploded in different parts of Lebanon and Syria, killing 37 people and wounding around 3,000 others. The attack was blamed on Israel, and many of those killed or injured were members of Hezbollah.

Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report.

Hezbollah members carry the coffin of their comrade who was killed when a handheld device exploded, during a funeral procession in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Right-wing Israelis with relatives held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and their supporters, rally against a hostage deal, in Jerusalem, Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. The placard in Hebrew reads: " To bathe in his blood." (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Houses are engulfed in fire as the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinians duck for cover as the Israeli army raided the northern West Bank town of Qabatiya on Thursday, Sept.19, 2024. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

FILE - Hezbollah fighters carry one of the coffins of four fallen comrades who were killed Tuesday after their handheld pagers exploded, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)