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An Arizona State University hockey player who was hospitalized after a workout will likely not recover, his lawyer said Tuesday
Matthew Mayich, sophomore defenseman from Ontario, Canada, collapsed on Aug. 20 during an outdoor workout in Tempe. Mayich was rushed to a local hospital, where he remains
His family’s lawyer, Robert Carey, said the 21-year-old is incapacitated, and his condition is “highly unlikely” to change
“His family is at his side, and they are grateful for the support they’ve received from the hockey community and from Matthew’s teammates,” Carey told Arizona’s Family in a statement
Temperatures that day reached 106 degrees, but officials noted the workout did not occur during the hottest part of the day
Carey said his focus now is on their own investigation into what happened that day
Shortly after Mayich was hospitalized, Arizona’s Family talked to Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency physician and professor at ASU, who emphasized the extreme difficulty and danger of training in extreme heat
“It’s very, very hard to train in this heat,” LoVecchio said. “I don’t know if anyone’s going to be able to exercise really, really hard for a long time in the middle of the heat in Arizona.”
LoVecchio noted that even elite, highly conditioned athletes such as Mayich will struggle when pushed in extreme temperatures
“And something that we say, it doesn’t take long to burn brain cells, and your temperature could rise very, very quickly,” LoVecchio said. “The average person, even athletes, can’t make it in that heat. And when I say can’t make it, it’s very, very unlikely that they can make it without needing some assistance.”
Arizona’s Family reached out to ASU for a statement Tuesday but, as of the time of writing, has not heard back
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