Students, staff and coaches are in mourning after a 14-year-old football player died on Thursday.
“They really feel bad because they’re like ‘how didn’t we see this?’” Theresa Hernandez, whose son helped pull 14-year-old Curtis Walton from the pool at Calumet High School on Wednesday night. “’How didn’t we see him? Why?’”
Walton and his teammates were in the pool after football practice when witnesses realized that the boy was lying at the bottom of the pool. He was eventually pulled to the surface, but later died at a local hospital.
“They said they were in the pool for maybe 20 minutes, if that,” Hernandez said. “And it just happened.”
Guidance counsellors were provided to students on Thursday as the sheriff’s office in Lake County continues to investigate the drowning.
“We had people on guard,” Superintendent Dr. Sharon Johnson-Shirley said. “The coach was in the seat to look after the students and he saw two other students going down to bring this kid up. He responded immediately.”
Two students jumped into the water to try to save Walton, and a coach began to perform CPR on the boy once he was brought to the surface.
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“Our coaches became the first responders immediately, doing what they needed to do to revive the student,” Dr. Johnson-Shirley said.
After Walton’s death, his father thanked the community for their support in a Facebook post, and other parents in the community say they are hugging their children just a little bit closer after the tragic incident.
“Tell them you love them all the time, because you don’t know if they’re going to come home,” Hernandez said.
The school’s homecoming football game is next week, and the team is planning tributes to their fallen teammate.
