Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011: Phoenix player collapses on field, dies after game

   Ridge Barden was a two-way lineman for Phoenix. District Superintendent Judy Belfield said he sustained a head injury during the third quarter of the game and was taken from the field by paramedics after complaining of a severe headache and collapsing while trying to stand up.

   “The coaches and trainers went over," Belfield told The Post-Standard. "He was talking. He rolled on his back by himself."

   Barden was initially treated at a local hospital and was in an ambulance en route to a Syracuse hospital when his condition deteriorated. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

   "I have no words right now, my world has been devastated," the player's father said in a statement according to WSYR-TV. "But I want to say thank you to all of you that have written me and are sending your prayers to me. October 14th will go down as the worst day of my life. I don't know what I'm going to do without you Ridge, I love you so much, and cannot even grasp that you are not here."

   Phoenix players and coaches did not learn of the severity of the player's injuries until after Homer's 27-6 victory. The Phoenix team was gathering Saturday morning at the high school, and Belfield said counseling would be available.

   “It just one of those freak things,” Belfield said. “The Homer players have to be feeling just as much sadness.”

   A statement on the Homer school district website said in part: "The Homer School Community is deeply saddened and shares in the grief of the Phoenix School Community in the death of one of their varsity football players Friday night."

   It was not immediately known when the most recent fatality occurred in a New York high school sports contest.

   In 1983, Yonkers football player Fernando Guedes, 17, died after collapsing during the season-opening game vs. Scarsdale. The death prompted the district to briefly suspend all sports while it investigated how an athlete with a serious heart ailment was allowed to participate.

   Newburgh Free Academy tri-captain James Arline, a 17-year-old senior linebacker, fell ill shortly after an October 1992 road game and died of a stroke. It was uncertain whether it was related to a blow suffered in the game.

   Torrance Wright Jr., a 17-year-old center of the football team at Rochester's Franklin High, collapsed and died during a four-team scrimmage in Livonia the week before the start of the 1999 regular season.

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   Spackenkill junior football player Mark Milano died Oct. 7, 2006, from complications involving pain medication at his home a day after dislocating an ankle during a game at Millbrook.

   In April 2007, Pittsford freshman lacrosse player Jeff Milano-Johnson, 14, died after he was struck in the back of his head just below the helmet by a ball during warmups before a game at Spencerport.

   Another freshman lacrosse player died in March 2000. Louis Acompora, a 14-year-old Northport goalie, was struck in the chest by a ball during a freshman game. Acompora suffered commotio cordis, a rare form of cardiac arrest considered reversible with the assistance of an automated external defibrillator, which typically was not available at sports contests at that time.

   His parents became very active in raising awareness through the Louis Acompora Foundation, and then-Gov. George Pataki signed into law a bill in June 2002 requiring that a portable defibrillator be placed in each high school. Louis’ Law was the nation’s first to require AEDs.

   Binghamton High lacrosse player John Mack died Nov. 30, 2006, two days after suffering cardia arrest when checked across the chest during a pickup lacrosse game in the offseason.

   New York City-area runners Stephanie Companioni (St. Thomas Aquinas) and Tanya Lovelace (St. Francis Prep), collapsed and died in February and April 1991, after competing. Both were reported to be instances of sudden heart failure.

   Earlier this week Ryan Smith, a JV player at Edmond, Okla., North High, died unexpectedly after breaking his leg during a practice.