OMAHA, Neb. -- Grieving neighbors left balloons and flowers around a baseball diamond where a 5-year-old boy died after being hit in the chest by a ball, and stunned families gathered Sunday at a local school to discuss the tragedy with social workers.
A team of counselors was dispatched to Morton Elementary School in Millard, where Andrew Cook would have been a kindergartner this fall, and memorials were left at Anderson Field, where the accident happened Saturday.The boy was standing next to an adult pitcher and asked an adult catcher to throw him the ball. But he glanced away as the soft-cored T-ball was thrown, and it struck him in the chest.
"Andrew attempted to catch it, and the ball hit him on the chest and he went into cardiac arrest," said Suzanne Hinman, principal of the elementary school. "We're all in shock. This is just such a freak accident."
Police said the boy staggered and fell, took a few breaths and then stopped breathing. Hinman said Andrew did not have a known history of illness.
Officer Don Savage said a doctor came out of the stands to join others who unsuccessfully tried to revive the child. Paramedics took the boy to St. Joseph Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. An autopsy was planned.
Medical experts have calculated that about one in 200,000 school-age athletes dies annually from accidents on the playing field.
Doctors say seemingly innocent blows to the chest can cause cardiac arrest if they happen at precisely the right moment in the heartbeat.
Hinman said the youth league was run by the Millard Athletic Association. She declined to release any information about the adult who threw the ball.
"We're all thinking of the Cook family," Hinman said. "This is a tragedy for the community, too."