a Child Safety Alert during one of the
hottest times of the year the feels-like
temperature reached 99 degrees here in
Jacksonville today and as your student
athletes practice for the upcoming
sports season how do you know they're
safe in this brutally hot weather is
someone watching over them during
practice is their coach sending them to
the locker room to cool off if they get
too hot
one mom on the other side of the state
thought her son's coach was doing those
things but he was not Jennifer wah has
this woman's heartbreaking story and her
message for every parent at six feet
four inches and 320 pounds
Zach Martin was thrilled to be asked to
try out for the high school football
team at his school in Fort Myers he was
just 16 years old and starting his
freshman year the first day of summer
conditioning his mother was waiting in
the car in the parking lot to pick him
up when one of his teammates knocked on
her car window and told her something
she will never forget Zach is down and
they can't get him up as I walk up to
the field I can hear Jack sort of
moaning over and over again at first
Lauri Giordano thought her son was just
cramping the coach just said you know
now it's not a time to panic and you
know he just got a little overheated and
we just got to get some fluids into him
and he'll be okay
she says Zach's coach assured her he saw
this kind of thing with players all of
the time but as she looked at her son
what I was seeing just made me sick to
my stomach and but the coach was saying
he was okay she realized he wasn't and
called 911
he was admitted to ICU they started
telling us about organ failure
his liver had completely failed his
kidneys were failing Zack had a
heatstroke his core body temperature had
reached a hundred and seven degrees
things were getting worse each day
Zack was not rebounded for 10 long days
it was a lot of
there was a lot of begging cub to fight
then it became painfully clear her 16
year old son could not be saved but at
the end
it was just like to give know that we
all loved him very much and we would
visit very much since that day last June
Zach's mom and stepdad have created a
foundation in his name they traveled the
state talking to parents coaches and
athletic trainers I don't think that
this was an issue where everyone
panicked everyone was pretty calm cool
and collected they had no idea what what
to do they they he was in the middle of
the football field in the middle of the
hot day and never even got moved to a
shaded area and and 911 wasn't called
until I insisted 911 be called I mean if
I think if I hadn't done that he would
have died right there on the field while
Lori cherishes the last few days she did
have with her son she and Edie mists
Zach's bear hugs his gentle soul and the
opportunity to watch their boy grow into
the man they knew he would one day
become he was gonna be a great dad he
was gonna be a great person he was gonna
have a great job he was gonna do lots of
great things because you could see a
happening right before us Zach should
have been iced down that day on the
field in Fort Myers he should have been
told to stop practicing as soon as he
started vomiting and someone should have
been monitoring the temperature and the
humidity on the field that day if that
would have happened
Zach would be 17 years old today and
would be starting his sophomore year of
high school
Jennifer watch channel 4 the local
station