A lawsuit filed earlier this month in federal court alleges the Howard County (Md.) Public School System failed in its response to the collapse due to cardiac arrest of a Hammond High School varsity basketball player, who laid unresponsive and unattended on the floor for 15 minutes.
As reported by The Baltimore Banner, Janet Kena claims a defibrillator was stationed just outside of the school’s gym at the time her son, a junior at the Columbia school, collapsed during practice, but none of the school’s administration or coaching staff retrieved the device or provided immediate medical care such as CPR.
The suit states the school system’s actions violated federal law and left the teen, identified in the suit by his initials, A.A., in a persistent vegetative state. He is quadriplegic, unable to speak and unable to eat without a feeding tube, according to the suit, which was filed Jan. 17 in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, Lillian Reed of the Banner reported.
Kena, represented by attorney Solomon Radner, is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from the school system and multiple unnamed defendants involved in the incident, which took place nearly a year prior to the filing of the lawsuit, on Jan. 18, 2024, and was captured on the school’s security cameras. The school has not made from inside the gym public, Reed reported.
The suit claims the school system’s training and supervision policies fell “woefully short” and that the teen was harmed as a result. If the litigation concludes in the mother’s favor, a court could order the school system to pay attorney fees, damages or settlement costs.
“We seek to hold the school officials accountable, bring some semblance of justice to our clients, and ensure that schools everywhere take steps to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again,” Radner said in an statement, as reported by the Banner.
The complaint states that on the day of the teen’s collapse, he lay unresponsive on the gym floor for about 15 minutes before receiving emergency medical interventions. Someone at the high school called 911 about an unresponsive male before paramedics arrived and began performing CPR and other emergency medical procedures.
It’s unclear how long the teen lay on the floor before 911 was called, Radner said. He suspects the student-athlete was waiting for help for at least a half-hour. “He will suffer for the rest of his life as a direct result,” Radner said.
Kena lost her job at a local retirement community after exhausting her unpaid leave time in order to provide her son with round-the-clock care. She was also forced to move to a new home since the teen became quadriplegic and could no longer access their fourth-floor apartment.
