Tragedy on the pitch

Montague rugby player suffers serious head injury, placed on life support following surgery, will be organ donor

A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to support the family of a P.E.I. rugby player who was placed on life support after suffering a serious head injury during a game Friday night.

What started out as a weekend celebration of rugby at Three Oaks Senior High School in Summerside turned to tragedy when a member of the Montague Vikings was injured Friday night, during a game in the 22nd annual David Voye Memorial rugby tournament.

The player was transported by ambulance to Prince County Hospital in Summerside, and then, later in the evening, to Moncton, N.B., where he underwent surgery.

“(Friday) one of our studentathletes was involved in a freak accident during a rugby game,” read a post on the Montague Regional High School website.

“He sustained a brain injury that required surgery.

“Unfortunately, it is with deep sadness that we have to convey that Brodie McCarthy did not register any brain activity after the surgery. His family has chosen to donate Brodie’s organs because that was what Brodie would have wanted.”

McCarthy was a Grade 12 student set to graduate in June.

Parker Grimmer, director of the Prince Edward Island public schools branch, offered this statement to the Journal Pioneer on Saturday: “The Public Schools Branch can confirm that the student sustained a serious injury on Friday while playing in the David Voye Memorial rugby tournament in Summerside. He is now in hospital. The Montague high school is open (Saturday), and I just got back from there myself. Counsellors were on-site to support students and staff. . . Our thoughts are with the student, his family, teammates and friends at this time.”

Understandably, both the Montague boys and girls’ teams were very upset with the injury, and decided not to continue in the tournament.

Games resumed on Saturday morning, but after it was learned that McCarthy was on life support, the final two championship games — Tier 1 girls and boys — were not played.

The mood on the grounds of Three Oaks was very sombre as both players and coaches on a number of teams were visibly upset when the updated news broke.

A record 28 senior AAA teams — 16 girls and 12 boys — were competing in the three-day tournament, which attracted teams from P.E.I., Nova Scotia, Ontario and Alberta.