Taeshawn Nelson was a junior offensive lineman at East Central High School when a preseason football practice in the Tulsa heat put him in a hospital ICU for nearly two weeks with organ damage. Now he is suing Tulsa Public Schools and two of his former coaches, alleging negligence and a violation of his 14th Amendment rights over what happened to him on the practice field.
The lawsuit stems from an Aug. 27, 2024 practice in which temperatures reached 95 degrees with a heat index of 98 degrees, according to KJRH. Nelson and other players were instructed to repeatedly run the length of the field, and the suit alleges one coach yelled for Nelson to continue the drill even as conditions worsened, according to Nelson's attorney. As reported by News On 6, Nelson sued Tulsa Public Schools and the two former coaches for negligence.
By the time Nelson's father reached the practice, his son had already lost consciousness. “By the time I got to the practice, he had already been unconscious,” he said, per the same KJRH account. Nelson spent almost two weeks recovering in the St. Francis Pediatric ICU, and roughly two weeks after the incident, his father said the heatstroke had damaged his liver and kidney and that he was on dialysis.
Lawsuit Alleges District Lacked Basic Cooling Equipment
According to the lawsuit, East Central High School lacked an ice-water immersion tub or other cooling mechanisms that could have been used to rapidly bring down Nelson's body temperature. The suit also accuses Tulsa Public Schools of failing to properly train athletic staff to recognize and respond to heat illness. Nelson's attorney said the conditions that day violated National Athletic Trainers' Association guidelines and put Nelson and his teammates at risk.
Tulsa Public Schools has said the football team did take precautions against heat-related illness on Aug. 27, including adding breaks and limiting practice time, the district told the station's report. The district also said its football teams were equipped with Kestrel Heat Stress Tracker devices meant to monitor and respond to weather conditions in real time. Those claims predate the lawsuit and describe the district's account of what safeguards were in place that day.
District Points to National Guidelines, Declines Further Comment
Tulsa Public Schools has said the safety and well-being of students and staff is its top priority and that it does not comment on pending litigation, per News On 6. The district also said it followed National Athletic Trainers' Association guidelines designed to prevent heat illness in 2024. Nelson's attorney said heat-related illnesses are preventable and expressed hope that the case pushes schools to take heat-illness precautions more seriously.
A GoFundMe organized by Nelson's father, Toby Nelson, describes ongoing financial strain tied to his son's recovery. “As he continues to get better we as a family has fallen behind in bills and needing more for his continue recovery,” the GoFundMe page states.
Heatstroke Risk Runs High Among Linemen
Nelson's position on the offensive line places him in a group medical and athletic organizations have identified as facing outsized heat-illness risk. ESPN reports linemen account for 90% of heatstroke deaths in high school and college football, and that exertion drills used as punishment were cited as a factor in 37% of those deaths nationally. The National Athletic Trainers' Association and the National Federation of State High School Associations have urged coaches to exclude linemen from mile runs, serial sprints and other preseason performance testing during the first weeks of the season, per that same ESPN report.
Research cited by the National Institutes of Health found football's exertional heat-illness rate is 11.4 times the rate in all other sports combined. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said heat-related illness in athletes can be prevented when coaches and athletes are properly educated about heat safety, and the agency's guidance has pointed to a 14-day acclimatization period for warm-weather conditioning as a key safeguard.
Similar Cases Have Played Out Elsewhere
Nelson's case follows other lawsuits and legal outcomes involving high school football heatstroke around the country. A Richland County, South Carolina jury awarded $4.8 million after finding a school district grossly negligent in the case of a ninth-grader who was placed in a medically induced coma for 10 days and hospitalized for nearly two months following a 2022 practice, according to The State. That student, Jordan Stroud, suffered lasting muscle loss in his shin and calf and now walks with a brace; the district has said it intends to appeal. In Mississippi, the Rankin County School District settled a lawsuit brought by the parents of Trey Laster, a high school senior who died of heatstroke in 2022, per ESPN's reporting.
Under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act, a political subdivision such as a school district is liable only for the percentage of total damages corresponding to its percentage of total negligence, according to legislative text from the Oklahoma Legislature. How that standard applies to Nelson's case against Tulsa Public Schools remains to be determined as the litigation moves forward.
