Joplin and Kansas Newspaper Coverage Starts Bringing the Heat to Coach Jeff Sims, Garden City Community College, Missouri Southern State University in Braeden Bradforth Death
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December 11, 2018
The Garden City Community College football coaches, summoned to where teammates found a missing Braeden Bradforth slumped against a wall after an intense cardio workout on the first day of practice, had the stricken 19-year-old hosed with water to see if that would make him responsive, before deciding to call 911.
That is the key initial finding from the Finney County (Kansas) Emergency Medical Services Patient Care Report for the call on August 1, reflecting events in the frantic moments before Bradforth was pronounced dead at St Catherine Hospital. Concussion Inc. has obtained a copy of the report.
The coroner’s autopsy report, filed last month, would rule that the cause of the Bradforth death was exertional heat stroke (EHS).
In the immediate aftermath of Bradforth’s passing, the GCCC head coach, Jeff Sims, told the media that an emergency room doctor had told him that the player sustained a fatal blood clot. Sims called the death an act of God. Sims is now the head coach at Missouri Southern State University.
The first takeaway from the EMS narrative, however, strongly suggests that the coaching staff gathered at the scene of the fallen Bradforth already suspected EHS.
In the narrative, the two paramedics who authored the report describe the student-athlete as unresponsive but breathing, as well as moaning and wet. There was water on the sidewalk surrounding him.
The report notes that one coach said Bradforth was wetted with a hose, and after that intervention failed to make him responsive, EMS was contacted. The report does not name this coach, nor does it name the person who directed the hose at the young man on the instructions of this coach or of the collective coaching staff.
In addition, several of the coaches told paramedics that Bradforth appeared to have been down for from 20 to 30 minutes before teammates discovered him.
More shortly on this developing story.
DEATH OF BRAEDEN BRADFORTH — CHRONOLOGICAL HEADLINE LINKS