Thomas Herrion (OF), SF

News: On August 20, 49ers OF Thomas Herrion collapsed after a training session with the team. Herrion later died after attempts to save his life were unsuccessful. An autopsy was recently completed on the 6-foot-3, 335 pounder.

The autopsy revealed multiple problems with Herrion's heart. Assistant corroner Amy Martin said that a week before Herrion's death, he suffered a mild heart attack that he probably did not even notice.

Martin said, "There are a lot of instances where people have heart attacks and are not aware of them, especially when your job requires you to do things that require you to get hurt. He may not have thought much about it." Martin went on to say that she found microscopic evidence of organizing heart necrosis.

There were no drugs present in his system, besides atrophine, which was used to try to revive Herrion.

The conclusion of the autopsy was that Herrion died from a massive heart attack. At the time of Herrion's last physical, he passed all EKG, stress and blood tests, according to the 49ers. Those tests were just administered at the beginning of the year.

Views: This is what I refer to as the "sick-cycle of being an NFL lineman." If a person wants to be a lineman in the NFL, they must beef themselves up to the point of being unhealthy. I posted an article about 10 minutes ago about how the New York Giants need to get a bigger line in order to have success on offense. I almost didn't post that view, but I decided that I should leave all criticisms aside and just state the facts. The players' union needs to do more in terms of putting a cap on how much a lineman can weigh in the league. Until that happens, sad stories like this will continue to happen.

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[1] by cranky canuck on 09/10/2005 06:00 am

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Heart disease.Number one risk factor for heart disease?Being morbidly obese.This is gonna continue to happen as long as the football establishment is only concerned about what human beings can do now for them.

[2] by Matt on 09/10/2005 08:34 am

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In the article, I wrote:

"The players' union needs to do more in terms of putting a cap on how much a lineman can weigh in the league. Until that happens, sad stories like this will continue to happen."

I agree with you in every way.

[3] by NYsportsMAN on 09/10/2005 10:45 am

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how is a dead player only MEDIUMly important...FIC BOT I'm ashamed...this should be HI

[4] by hessshaun on 09/10/2005 11:01 am

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NYsportsMAN wrote:

how is a dead player only MEDIUMly important...FIC BOT I'm ashamed...this should be HI

A computer has no feelings, but I agree with you 100%. I mean the team will either implode or rally together for a 4-12 season.

[5] by NYsportsMAN on 09/10/2005 11:03 am

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hessshaun wrote:

NYsportsMAN wrote: how is a dead player only MEDIUMly important...FIC BOT I'm ashamed...this should be HI A computer has no feelings, but I agree with you 100%. I mean the team will either implode or rally together for a 4-12 season.

lol...that was freaking hilarious

[6] by EvilEmpire on 09/10/2005 11:10 am

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hessshaun wrote:

rally together for a 4-12 season.

lol

I wonder how and if the league will deal with this. It think it is unlikely that a 24 year old can have blocked vessels without a strong genetic predisposition for heart disease. So I think this was a freak accident.

I guess they would have to set a %body fat limit. While such a limit could be helpful in raising the age expectancy, I doubt it would have saved Herrion. What would have helped him would have been heart ultrasound and angiography. They should be doing advanced heart diagnostics on these at risk players. You know they can afford it. If they had detected the plaque buildups in his arteries they could have fixed it before it was too late.

[7] by hessshaun on 09/10/2005 11:19 am

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EvilEmpire wrote:

hessshaun wrote: rally together for a 4-12 season. lol I wonder how and if the league will deal with this. It think it is unlikely that a 24 year old can have blocked vessels without a strong genetic predisposition for heart disease. So I think this was a freak accident. I guess they would have to set a %body fat limit. While such a limit could be helpful in raising the age expectancy, I doubt it would have saved Herrion. What would have helped him would have been heart ultrasound and angiography. They should be doing advanced heart diagnostics on these at risk players. You know they can afford it. If they had detected the plaque buildups in his arteries they could have fixed it before it was too late.

Yeah I wonder about that type of preventive maintenance. You cannot put a limit on these guys IMO. I mean, these are huge guys regardless of football. Every single player has a weight that they are required to meet in camp and throughout the season to maintian. Who knows what kind of leverage the players have, but there is a more noticable difference in the amount of slobs in the league as opposed to say 10 years ago. I am not saying the players have not gotten bigger, just saying the bigger players look more fit than 10 years ago.

Also, Turiaf for the Lakers seemed to have a pretty comprehensive exam that turned out to save his life. I wonder if basketball has a better system to determine these types of diseases.

Other than that, I do not blame the NFL or teams. It's a numbers game and when there are 32 teams with about 60 player on the roster and practice squad(+/- injuries through out the season) there will be instanses of these types of things. Stringer did not die because he was over weight, he died from heat stroke. Anyone on here could die just as easy as he did. I blame the medical staff and coaches for that.

[8] by EvilEmpire on 09/10/2005 11:24 am

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I like that new sensor that they are swallowing that records core body temperature. Heat stroke is something that they can definatly monitor and better prevent. I guess it took Stringer's death to make change.

[9] by outtahere1357 on 09/10/2005 11:27 am

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im probably at risk for heart disease. my dad is a heart patient and im large. not obese by any means, but large, certainly. I saw a college guy for Iowa or maybe Iowa state, or maybe Georiga (I dont wathc the games often, and I watched one today) that was 340 pounds!

[10] by Matt on 09/10/2005 11:50 am

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I have to take all of the blame for putting the Alert only on Medium. We, the FIC authors, set the categories that you see tagged on to each story.

Each one of us has different ways of using the alert status. The "Alert: HI" category, is one that, personally, I only use for stories that are either breaking news, have a huge implication, or news surrounding that of a marquee player. The medium status shouldn't be disregarded as a lack of concern or care for the story - we obviously cared about it to post it.

But, I just wanted to clear that up so that the FIC Bot didn't get offended...

[11] by NYsportsMAN on 09/10/2005 12:08 pm

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w/e...thanks for explaining tho Matt

[12] by hessshaun on 09/10/2005 12:49 pm

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EvilEmpire wrote:

I like that new sensor that they are swallowing that records core body temperature. Heat stroke is something that they can definatly monitor and better prevent. I guess it took Stringer's death to make change.

Yeah I saw that, pretty remarkable. It is not uncommon for core body temp. to reach 102+ or as high as 106. Cool little invention. I think something like five teams are using this now, (the Eagles are one, hope I don't get accused of wearing blinders again) but I do not know how many companies provide this type of service. There may be more.