A Winnipeg high school football player who suffered a serious neck injury during a game two weeks ago has died.
“Our hearts are heavy today, but there is comfort in knowing that Dee is no longer suffering,” Stephanie Ciaralli posted on Facebook early Thursday.
“After heartfelt visits and final goodbyes from family and friends, he took his last peaceful breath early this morning.”
Ciaralli was raising Darius Hartshorne, better known to everyone as Dee.
“Dee, you are the son I chose to love every single day, without hesitation. I’m so deeply sorry for all that you had to go through these last 12 days, but I am endlessly proud of the young man you became and the path you had just begun to walk,” the Facebook post said.
“Though your time here was far too short, the love you gave will live on in all of us.”
Hartshorne, a Grade 12 student who played for the Sisler Spartans, was injured when he was tackled while returning the opening kickoff of an Oct. 17 game against the Tec Voc Hornets.
“It’s tragic, and we’re sending all sorts of supports to those schools that will be deeply impacted … to be there, to help people process and for whatever else folks might need,” Matt Henderson, superintendent of the Winnipeg School Division, said Thursday morning.
“We just want to support kids, we want to support our staff and the family.”
Hartshorne was a well-liked and valued member of the Spartans, head coach Sean Esselmont told CBC News last week.
He called Hartshorne “one of the most genuine and wonderful young men I’ve had the pleasure of coaching in all of my time here.”
The team has been wearing decals on their helmets, featuring Hartshorne’s jersey number 57, and made sure his jersey was prominently displayed at games.
In a Facebook post on Sunday, Ciaralli said Hartshorne had been put into an induced coma last week due to a high fever that caused damage to his kidneys and liver and swelling in his brain.
As of the weekend, he was no longer in the induced coma or under sedation, but he wasn’t waking up on his own, Ciaralli said.
“All the things we were seeing post op that were giving us so much hope are no longer the same,” she wrote at the time.
Hartshorne turned 17 five days ago, while in hospital.
“I’d give anything just to be able to bring you home,” Ciaralli wrote two days later.
