CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — A senior at South Harrison High School is still in a medically induced coma at Ruby Memorial Hospital following an injury that happened during Friday night’s football game against Lincoln High School.
Dylan Jeffries, 17, collapsed on the sideline after taking a hit. Later Friday night, he underwent emergency surgery at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown to have a massive blood clot removed from his brain.
South Harrison Principal Greg Moore said, at this point, it’s not clear if the hit Jeffries took in the fourth quarter of the game caused the problem or if the blood clot was there prior to the tackle.
“When he was tackled, the back of his head did the hit the ground. That initiated whatever happened,” said Moore. He said Jeffries was called to the sideline where he collapsed after he ran the wrong direction in the play that followed the hit. He was taken off the field on a stretcher.
Moore said Jeffries is currently on a ventilator and is being monitored.
“They have to keep an eye on the brain pressures because, whenever you do brain surgery, there’s swelling of the brain and, for four or five days afterwards, that pressure goes up and down and they monitor that,” he said. The plan is to start bringing Jeffries out of the coma later this week.
Moore said a lot of people are pulling together and hoping for the best for Jeffries. “Down here at South Harrison, we’re the little rural school of the county and it’s a family community down here,” he said on Tuesday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”