An attorney for the family of an Arizona State University hockey player who collapsed during an outdoor practice is asking Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell to open an investigation into the case.
Matthew Mayich remains hospitalized in a coma more than a month after the Aug. 20 practice. His family’s lawyer, Robert Carey, said the 21-year-old suffered exertional heatstroke and is unlikely to recover.
“The result here is about as severe as it gets short of death,” Carey wrote in a Sept. 23 letter to Mitchell.
Carey said ASU hockey coaches “skipped every safeguard” required by the university’s own heat safety policies.
“It appears that ASU did not follow its own guidelines,” Carey wrote. “It appears that the conduct of those responsible may have been criminally reckless.”
ASU on Sept. 21 released an initial report about the incident.
The report says Mayich collapsed after more than an hour outside on the first day of coach-led training. It said trainers used towels and water to try to cool him before emergency services arrived.
ASU’s heat illness policy requires an ice tub to be available for immediate full body immersion in heat emergencies. The policy also says athletes should be acclimatized to heat over the first few weeks.
Carey said other members of the hockey team have described to him a workout that was much more strenuous than what was described in ASU’s report.
The report says athletes were given a water break about 20 minutes into the training, for example. But in his letter, Carey wrote, “ASU says there was one water break, at about 20 minutes. The players say it came much later, and that only a limited number of them got water at all. Matthew was not among them.”
The report does not place blame on any party involved, but recommends ASU form an advisory panel to review policies for outdoor athletic activities.
“The University’s recommendation is a blue-ribbon panel to study best practices,” Carey wrote in his letter. “The best practices were already in the University’s own binder. The question is why no one followed them, and that is a question for a criminal investigator, not a panel.”
The report notes ASU police are conducting their own investigation into the incident.
“We ask that your office not simply review ASUPD’s findings when they arrive, but open its own investigation,” Carey wrote to Mitchell.
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