[icallfouls]

This is a situation that happened to me in a ball game several years ago.

Local rivalry game with one very talented team, and one not so talented. The better team (A) was struggling early and had just started to make a run that would give them an 8 point lead.

Team A made a series of substitutions and my partner had just given the ball to B for an inbound. I am near the division line when all of a sudden coach A starts screaming for TO. The actions and conduct of the coach were so out of character that I blew my whistle to stop the action. I looked at the end of Bench A and see one of the players that had just been removed from the game colapse to the floor in a heap. It didn't look as serious as it turned out to be. BTW game is being played in B's gym.

Parents and other family members are running onto the floor (there is not a lot of room on the endlines, they had to cross the floor somehow). People are on the phone calling 9-1-1. The player's mother is screaming at the top of her lung's to the player "come back to" "Shelia" over and over.

GM consisted of the coach and the scorer's table personnel and a few others that also had other school duties. Due to the financial situation of the school there really wasn't anyone there that could offer assistance. The officials on the game had no knowledge of any kind that this player had a condition. The young man died in front of everyone that night.

As officials, had we started blowing our whistle and tried to keep this player's family from him at this time we would have had far more trouble on our hands than we would have wanted.

My point being, even if the injury doesn't initially seem serious to you, there might be other factors at work and preventing family to come to a players aid is not our job, nor is it worthy of a T.

I also have had games where players got fouled and the resulting contact lead to a broken wrist and a blown out knee. We did our job and got out of the way of the people who knew the situation better than the officials did. We usually only see these kids for a 1.5 hours. Part of our job is safety of the players, not to determine who offers assistance.

If the parent still wishes to say something, let GM handle it.

Just my 2 pennies worth.