Mother of NBA prospect who died after in-game collapse suing league
Twenty-six-year old professional basketball players aren’t supposed to collapse on the court and die.
Now, the mother of Zeke Upshaw wants to know why it happened to her son.
Upshaw, a forward for the Grand Rapids Drive of the NBA’s G-League, collapsed on the court near the end of his team’s last regular season game on March 24.
He died two days later, and a medical examiner determined he had suffered a “sudden cardiac death,” according to The Associated Press.
Now, Zeke’s mom, Jewel Upshaw, has filed suit against the NBA, the Detroit Pistons Basketball Company (the Drive is an affiliate of the Pistons), the owners of the Drive and the Deltaplex Arena (where the game was held).
She claims that as her son lay dying, no attempts were made to save his life.
According to the suit, Zeke Upshaw could have survived if he received the proper medical attention.
“Zeke Upshaw, improperly attended, was left to lie unconscious on the hardwood, in his team’s full uniform, slowly dying as his otherwise healthy heart sat, unbeating in his chest,” the suit reads, per Deadspin. “A heart that likely only needed a compression series, or a charged delivery from a defibrillator, to begin to pound again and to pump blood and life back into Zeke Upshaw. However, according to witnesses, no one ever attempted to revive him.”
Attorney Bob Hilliard, who is representing Jewel Upshaw, says it doesn’t make sense that nobody attempted to save Zeke.
Today a wrongful death lawsuit against the NBA & Pistons will be announced in the death of Zeke Upshaw, a Grand Rapids Drive G League player who collapsed during a March 24 game; he died 2 days later. His family’s lawyers say no life saving measures were attempted. He was 26. pic.twitter.com/0Xcftj5bqJ
— Stephanie Wash (@WashNews) May 30, 2018
“When the otherwise healthy heart of a professional NBA athlete suddenly stops during a game there is absolutely no reason, in 2018, that his heart cannot be immediately restarted,” Hilliard said at a news conference in New York on Wednesday. “No attempts were made to save Zeke Upshaw’s life. No CPR, no defibrillation, nothing.”
In the suit, Jewel Upshaw claims she later learned the on-court treatment was so poor that her son’s body “went without oxygen for another forty minutes … leaving his brain completely oxygen deprived.”
“At this point, there was no healthy brain left to save,” the suit reads, according to TMZ.
https://twitter.com/CarterFox17/status/1001847320068182016
Jewel Upshaw told WXMI in Grand Rapids, Michigan, “Please don’t pity me or anything like that, just join me as I fight for my child.”
Her son, who competed on the collegiate level at Illinois State and Hofstra, played professionally in both Slovenia and Luxembourg.
The Pistons gave him an “honorary call-up” after his death, NBA.com reported.
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