Noah Lear (16) died after a basketball hoop and backboard crushed his neck following a dunk attempt

[beli]

Bucyrus High School junior Noah Lear died from on Wednesday two weeks after he was severely injured while playing basketball.

Lear was playing basketball on Feb. 27 with three of his friends when a dunk attempt snapped the support pole causing the pole, backboard and hoop to come crashing down, landing on his head and neck.

He was taken by medical helicopter to Nationwide Children's Hospital and later moved to hospice care. He succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday morning. Lear fought for 18 days. According to the Facebook post, Lear is a registered organ donor.

The Facebook post started off by saying: "After fighting valiantly for 18 days, Noah has taken his last breath. He is no longer in pain."

Lear suffered damage to the portion of his brain that controls his heartbeat and blood pressure leading to a decision to move him into hospice care, according to the Facebook post.

Noah's mother Melissa Griffin said her son called her to tell her what happened two weeks ago.

"He called me a little bit after 7 p.m.," Noah's mother Melissa Griffin said. "He said, 'Mom, I had an accident, I hurt my teeth.' I told him to not worry about his teeth and asked where he was and he told me that the police were there and they were going to take him to the hospital."

When Griffin arrived, her son had not arrived yet. Then she started hearing trauma calls over the hospital speaker.

"I didn't even know what kind of accident he was talking about," Griffin said. "Was it a car accident or what? Then I finally saw him and the bleeding was so bad and he just kept saying he was sorry. I told him he had nothing to be sorry for, he didn't do anything wrong. He was just out being a good kid playing basketball with his friends."

"This is an incredibly challenging time for our students and staff," Bucyrus Secondary School Principal Mark Burke said in a press release. "The Bucyrus City School District is a family, and we will do whatever is necessary to help each student and staff member deal with losing a classmate, student and friend. Noah and his family are in our thoughts and prayers."

According to a press release, the district informed students and the secondary school prior to classes beginning on Wednesday of Noah's passing. The Crawford County Trauma Team has provided grief counseling to students and staff since Monday.

"The loss of life is never easy, and it's even more difficult when it's a child," Superintendent Kevin Kimmel said. "As the father of three children, my heart goes out to Noah's family."

A benefit is planned for Lear and his family at 4 p.m. April 2 at Bucyrus High School. A GoFundMe page has also been set up for Lear's family to help with the unexpected medical costs. The page can be found by searching, "Battle of the Lear Fundraiser" at gofundme.com.

http://mydeathspace.com/article/2016...a_dunk_attempt

[Angiebla]

Hold up...if he sustained that much trauma, how was he able to call his mom and be coherent? I also smell a lawsuit.

[SuchAClassicGirl]

That IS strange unless blot clot or brain swelling or something. Hell I've seen articles where people basically decapitated themselves at the neck but not the spinal cord and lived. If kid was calling mom maybe it went unrecognized?

[bermstalker]

This was a local boy. He was also a very popular high schooler. He played basketball for the school and also carried a 4.0.
The whole school district shut down the day of his funeral.

They were playing basketball at the Calvary Baptist Church.

https://www.gofundme.com/m8udd4e4

Accidents happen everyday. It is amazing how your entire world can change in an instant. On February 27, 2016 Noah got seriously hurt. He was doing what a normal kid would do, playing basketball with his friends. When Noah went up to slam dunk the basketball the backboard, rim, and post all came down on top of him crushing his neck and jaw. Since then he has been in the fight for his life.

Noah is only still with us thanks to his amazing friends Trenton Dunford and Andy Randolph. These boys stayed calm in the face of tragedy and called 911. Meanwhile their friend Michael Hernandez help hold Noah's head so that all of the blood would not run down his throat and choke him. Then at the hospital Dr. Tinchner and his amazing E.R. nurses kept Noah with us until the life-flight arrived to bring him down to Children's. All of these people are heroes.

Noah's traumatic brain injury (TBI) is worse than first thought. Although he has brain activity and is breathing on his own, the part of his brain that controls his heart and blood pressure has been damaged very badly. Due to this, he was moved this past weekend to a hospice care facility. He has been made very comfortable there and his tremors have been controlled better. He has been fighting for his life for 17 days now. He has survived this long against all odds. Unfortunately he has not come out of his coma and they do not expect him to be with us much longer. He is still fighting though.

Money raised through this campaign and through the benefit being held on April 2nd will be donated to the family in order to help pay for the unexpected costs they have been enduring through this tragic, surreal experience.

Please contact me if you have any questions. Thank you for all your support.

[Bewitchingstorm]

Wow ~ this is so sad.

[Jeneris]

Hold up...if he sustained that much trauma, how was he able to call his mom and be coherent? I also smell a lawsuit.

There was more to the story...

After Noah arrived at the hospital, he suffered cardiac arrest twice before being flown to a regional medical center. He faced oxygen loss to his brain — leaving his body incapable of controlling vitals such as heart rate and temperature.

[PunkerDuckie]

I'm going to guess brain swelling or a slow bleed. It doesn't always happen right away. I've watched people go from alert and oriented to practically dead over the course of 15 minutes. That's why we are very cautious with head injuries in the field and try to convince everyone to go to the hospital. You think you are fine or just have a little headache and BAM. done.

To be fair oxygen loss to the brain can also be caused by medical error (such as gutting an intubation tube and not noticing right away) but my money is still on traumatic injury vs medical error.

[Nic B]

When I first started reading this I thought he was hurt and unconscious immediately. So crazy to know he talked to his mom on the phone before being taken to the hospital....I can only imagine her feeling relief thinking he was going to be okay, only for him to end up passing away. Ugh, so heartbreaking.

[trepid]

Urgh.

This is just sad.

😢

Sounds like the kid took a nasty blow to the head and suffered from an intracranial haemorrhage. This could also account for why he was relatively coherent in the immediate aftermath . . . or at least until a build up in blood started putting pressure on the brain and causing severe damage.