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Football tackle puts teen in a coma

By CHANDRA BROADWATER
Published November 30, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - One Sunday afternoon in October, a flag football game at Delta Woods Park got rough.

Since then 16-year-old Joey Burns has been unconscious from a fierce tackle - his family torn to pieces while they wonder how to pay the all the bills.

"It's just a nightmare," said Tania Burns, Joey's mother, from the room she has refused to leave at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa.

A heart monitor beeped in the background as she talked on the phone.

"You're never ready for something like that," the 45-year-old said. "I always wondered what I would do if anything happened to any of my six kids. But God is giving me the strength. I refuse to think that (Joey) is going to stay like that."

At first, doctors gave Joey a 10 percent chance of living. The blow to his head from the tackle injured several areas of his brain, the damage so extensive that neurologists were convinced that he also must have had an aneurism or some other type of complication.

But that wasn't the case. Tests showed that the damage stemmed from the tackle.

While he has opened his eyes, there is only an empty gaze that breaks his mother's heart. Doctors say he's in a comalike state. No one knows if or when he will come out of it.

With a head of shiny black hair, Joey is known by friends as funny and outgoing. He could always crack a joke. But just as quickly, he could become shy, especially if he didn't know someone well.

Always athletic, it was his idea to head up a flag football team with other teens at the Christian Church in the Wildwood, just off U.S. 19. Beginning this year, they played each Sunday at Delta Woods Park in Spring Hill. Their goal was to break the winning streak of another church team in Orlando.

The Burns family moved to Hernando County from Colorado a little more than two years ago. Joey attended Central High School for his freshman and sophomore years but opted to take part in a homeschooling program through the church this school year.

After practice, some on the Wildwood team occasionally played with others at the park. The games got intense. No one wore helmets or other safety equipment.

Once someone went home with a mouthful of blood. Joey, more than 6 feet tall and weighing in at 170 pounds, had a few bruised ribs after another game.

On Oct. 8, he was tackled really hard. No one remembers exactly what happened, but Joey got up and went on playing for another 20 minutes or so.

Then he piled into a car with friends to head home. From the backseat, he almost immediately said that he couldn't see and then went into convulsions.

Someone called 911 on a cell phone and Joey was airlifted to Tampa. For a short time, doctors moved him to a rehabilitation facility in Largo, but pneumonia and a high fever sent him back to the hospital. He still has the pneumonia.

Besides opening his eyes and staring, Tania Burns said that her son moves his limbs only when he goes into sweating, shivering fits. He now weighs 130 pounds.

Eventually, he will move back into the rehabilitation facility, which would allow Tania to sleep at home. But she doesn't care about her own comfort; she's more than thankful for the spare bed nurses wheeled into the room. She would sleep on the concrete floor if she had to.

She's also grateful for the efforts of her church. On Saturday, members from the Wildwood will be at Weeki Wachee Springs, taking part in an annual yard sale. Whatever the church makes will go to the Burns family.

It's been hard for them all. Tania's husband, 47-year-old Ray, has been staying home with their younger children, ages 8 and 11. He found it impossible to continue working - he lays tile - with all the family chaos.

Son David, 21, has been pitching in, and so has a daughter, who recently went back to her home in Miami after a seven-week stay at the family home in Brooksville. She helped drive her mother, who has traffic phobia, back and forth to the hospital, when she her mother leave to come home.

Since then, Tania has been working herself up to making a trip on her own. Once, when Joey was in Largo, no one could take her to see him. Determined to get there, she got behind the wheel, gripped it tightly and drove.

What irks her even more is thinking about money when her son just lies there looking at nothing day after day. She's glad that she thought to make sure that Joey and her other young children would be covered by Medicaid.

She enrolled them during a spell where Ray had trouble finding work. But she never thought it would become so important.

"He was just playing football on a Sunday afternoon," Tania said. "Who would have thought that a tackle would have done this kind of damage? I hope this puts awareness out there. Kids are not invincible, they need to be careful."

Chandra Broadwater can be reached at cbroadwater@sptimes.com or (352) 848-1432.

[Last modified November 29, 2006, 20:56:28]