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A high school football player from Long Island is on life support after reportedly collapsing during conditioning drills at Newfield High School earlier this week.
Robert Bush, 17, of Selden, had only been on the field for about four minutes before he bent over, then passed out due to a “cardiac event” at about 5 p.m. on Monday, his older brother, Steve Bush, told Newsday.
Despite the efforts of his coaches — who performed CPR and shocked him with a defibrillator — and the emergency medical teams who rushed him to Stony Brook University Hospital, Bush went without blood or oxygen to his brain for at least 45 minutes.
“There’s no more brain function,” his brother said Thursday, adding that the teen is on life support.
“We are dealing with the end right now.”
Although it’s not clear why Bush collapsed, his family said he might have had a hereditary condition that thickens the walls of the heart’s left ventricle, according to Newsday.
Over time, this stops the heart from getting or pumping enough blood during each heartbeat.
But the teen never showed signs of having a heart condition, his family told the outlet.
Bush had joined the football team to improve his health and conditioning, his brother said.
Although he wasn’t naturally talented, he’d made great strides in his mission to play varsity ball.
“He’s a shorter kid, so we always told him, ‘You’re like the Rudy,” Steve said, referencing the famous 1993 movie about a college walk-on whose lifelong dream is to play for Notre Dame.
Bush’s parents, Robert and Patricia, adopted him when he was a baby and brought them into their sprawling family.
The couple had fostered more than 300 children, and Bush has 10 siblings whose ages range from 16 to 56 years old, according to his brother.
Patricia Bush died of cancer in 2017, and his father is dealing with severe medical issues that have left the family to fend for themselves.
Chris Bush, another brother, told Newsday that he more or less raised Robert and taught him to play football.
“He was always trying to get better and better because he was never a tall guy,” Chris said.
“But he’s got the motivation of 50 guys. He’s always trying to make himself better.”
Meanwhile, Steve Bush is left lamenting the life his brother will likely never have.
“He was just like all his older siblings,” he said.
“He wanted to get married. He wanted to have kids like all of us. So, as you can tell, knowing where he was in his life and how far he’s taken it just in the last two years, it’s killing us.”
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