CNN
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An Alabama community is mourning the death of a high school quarterback who suffered a brain injury during the school’s season opener Friday night, according to statements from school officials and the teenager’s family.
Caden Tellier was taken to the hospital in critical condition after suffering a head injury during John T. Morgan Academy’s game against Southern Academy in Selma, officials said Friday. He died the next day.
Tellier was 16, CNN affiliate WSFA reported. School principal Bryan Oliver confirmed that Tellier was an organ donor, AL.com reported.
“Our boy, Caden Tellier, has met Jesus face to face,” Tellier’s parents said in a statement Saturday. “Everyone who knows Caden has known kindness, generosity and love, and true to his nature, he is giving of himself once again.”
“Lives were touched by the way he lived and now lives will be saved because of his passing,” his parents said in a statement.
“While we may not know the full story for some time, early reports indicate that Caden likely suffered a ruptured blood vessel in his brain following a routine play in which he was tackled and made contact with the ground,” Alabama Independent School Association Executive Director Michael McLendon told CNN in a statement.
School officials are still gathering details about the incident, McLendon said, and it could be “some time before we have more information about the injury and the incident as a whole,” he said.
People in the crowd watching the game “probably didn’t see anything unusual,” he said.
Deaths at football matches are rare at any level, experts say.
According to data collected by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research, there were 16 deaths among football players in 2023, including seven among high school players.
Of those deaths, three were head injuries: two in high school football and one in youth league football. All three occurred during games. The remainder of the deaths in 2023 were considered exercise-related or medically related, with deaths including heatstroke, sudden cardiac arrest and pulmonary embolism.
Oliver called Tellier a bright light who graced the halls of his private school. “He was a student, a friend, an athlete and most importantly a follower of Christ. There are no words to describe how we feel as a school community and family,” Oliver said in a statement posted on social media.
A ceremony will be held soon, the Tellier family said. Morgan Academy officials suspended all school activities this week, according to the school association.
As of Monday morning, a Go Fund Me campaign to help cover the family’s medical and other expenses had raised more than $76,000.
CNN’s Jamie Gumbrecht contributed to this report.
