The mother of the 13-year-old youth football player from Carrick who collapsed and later died after an August practice is working to start a rapid medical response team to monitor football practices and games so what happened to her son doesn’t happen to others.
Jordan Duckett of Carrick died on Aug. 14 at UPMC Children’s Hospital after he collapsed at a youth football practice in Pittsburgh’s Windgap neighborhood. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Duckett died of severe asthma.
Jordan’s mother, Laken Duckett-Coates, said her son had felt ill that day, but he decided to attend the practice of the Westside Mustangs in Pittsburgh’s Windgap neighborhood.
Duckett-Coates started raising money to form a rapid medical response team to monitor future youth football practices and games in Jordan’s memory. She said she doesn’t want what happened to Jordan to happen to another child.
“We want to make a positive impact on children everywhere,” Duckett-Coates wrote in description of the fundraising page she started on Facebook to raise money to form the Jordan Duckett Rapid Medical Response Team.
The team will be made up of medical professionals that will attend youth football practices like the one her son was at when he collapsed, she wrote.
“We want to serve as a beacon of hope and a light so that children can play their games and attend practices knowing that they have rapid medical help if needed,” she wrote. “Let Sports be sports, not their last day on Earth.”
She’s selling T-shirts via Facebook to raise money to form the team.
The Western Pennsylvania Youth Athletic Association is also working to implement changes next season, according to its president Marty Langford.
Langford wasn’t aware of Duckett-Coates’ efforts but said the league is working to have coaches receive CPR training and with emergency management agencies to provide medical attention at games.
“We’re trying to put things in place ourselves,” Langford said.
