Family plans to sue Penn Hills SD after son collapses following football practice

PENN HILLS, Pa. — Family members say they’re planning to file a lawsuit against the Penn Hills School District after their son collapsed following football practice and who was so hot that doctors said his body was starting to decompose.

“I think they just said, ‘They're okay. They can get through this day,’” Maxwell Tchatchoua, 14, said.%

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Maxwell’s family says he was in his first day of pre-season heat acclimation training as a freshman football player at Penn Hills High School on Aug. 11. Severe Weather Team 11’s Chief Meteorologist Stephen Cropper said it was close to 80 degrees that day with 62 percent humidity.

“You felt like you were burning up, literally,” Maxwell said. “I was tired, really exhausted.’”

Maxwell’s mother, Prisca Eison, picked him up after the three-hour-long practice.

“The coaches left. Everybody left while he was on the field. He couldn't get up,” Eison said.

Eison said when her son got into her car, he got worse.

“He was crying, ‘Mom, mom help me, help me.’ I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ I look at him. His eye is turning white. His face is all blue. He's foaming at the mouth. That's when I started giving him CPR,” she said.

Eison said doctors told her that Maxwell would not survive. After he spent three weeks in a coma and two months hospitalized, Maxwell made a miraculous recovery, but he had to relearn everything.

“It almost makes me feel like the players were treated like cattle,” David Romanow, the family’s attorney, told Channel 11 News.

Romanow said the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association’s rules about water breaks and monitoring coaches were not followed, saying that’s what led to Maxwell’s severe, near-fatal dehydration.

“That created a metabolic crisis, and his body was decomposing at the time, which set off a series of acute strokes,” Romanow said.

“I don't think it was responsible enough for the coaches and the school to just let him die on the field,” Eison said.

When asked for comment, the Penn Hills School District provided the following statement to Channel 11 News:

Family members said Maxwell will likely need care for the rest of his life and have set up a

to cover some of those costs.

Cox Media Group