Oregon Teen Dies After Collapsing At Game

BEND, Ore. - A La Pine High School senior who collapsed before a football game last week has died from a congenital heart problem.

Alex Taylor, 17, the school's senior class president, died at 11:51 p.m. yesterday at St. Charles Medical Center in Bend, officials said.

Taylor apparently suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition just before the scheduled kickoff of yesterday's game against Sutherlin. When medical personnel could not revive him on the field, he was taken to the hospital.

David Kerr, La Pine's vice principal and athletic director, said the team's physician and paramedics could do little to slow the youth's heart rate, which exceeded 300 beats per minute.

The heart "wasn't filling up with blood, and it wasn't pumping blood, so there was obviously an oxygen-deprivation issue," he said.

Kerr said the school of 450 and the community had been traumatized by the situation. "I don't know what else to say, it's just very tough," he said.

He said no one knew that Taylor had a heart condition. Kerr said the routine physical exam required of all student athletes did not turn up anything, and neither his parents nor his grandparents knew there was a problem. Taylor played wide receiver.

Dr. Frederick Muller, chairman of the Exercise and Sports Science Department at the University of North Carolina, which tracks school sports deaths, said 12 high-school football players died on the field last school year. Six of those deaths were related to game injuries. The other six were from medical conditions, such as heart problems.