Attorneys for the family of Matthew Mayich have named the mechanism behind the 21-year-old hockey player's injury, and it is not what the earliest reports described. The condition is exertional heat stroke that reduced oxygen flow to his brain, attorney Rob Carey told ESPN, and his lawyers say the damage is irreversible.
Carey also corrected a term that had appeared in much of the coverage, including our own. In a statement to KTAR News, he said the condition should not be called a coma, because a coma implies deep unconsciousness from which recovery remains possible, and said Mayich's body ceased functioning in a fundamental way.
