Player collapses during game, dies

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MILWAUKEE — A 17-year-old basketball player with a heart problem died after collapsing during a high-school game.

Ervin Killiebrew had an abnormal heart rhythm caused by an enlarged heart, according to autopsy results released yesterday.

The Custer High School student was pronounced dead at a hospital Friday night, police said.

Killiebrew's condition is a muscle problem that would not typically be caught by a routine physical or electrocardiogram, Medical Examiner Jeffrey Jentzen said.

"The heart is so big the normal circuitry didn't work right," Jentzen said.

Jentzen said it could take several weeks to determine the exact cause of the abnormality.

Killiebrew was not in the game at the time but had been playing earlier, said Janis Doleschal, commissioner of athletics for Milwaukee Public Schools.

He was lying on the floor near the Custer bench, had no pulse and was not breathing when rescue personnel arrived, said Lt. Carter Hunnicutt of the Milwaukee Fire Department. He died at St. Michael Hospital.

The third quarter of the game between Custer and Milwaukee School of Languages had just started when the player collapsed.

The game was called off and the gym was cleared of about 100 fans, Doleschal said. Also canceled was last night's Custer varsity game at Waukesha West High School.