O'Neal Legal Team Enlists Florida Expert
Posted on: Friday, 9 December 2005, 21:00 CST
By Matthew Leblanc, Columbia Daily Tribune, Mo.
Dec. 8--Attorneys for the father of University of Missouri-Columbia football player Aaron O'Neal say a Florida expert is prepared to testify that athletic trainers did not act "reasonably" and ultimately caused or contributed to the player's death.
O'Neal, a 19-year-old freshman redshirt linebacker, died July 12 after collapsing on the field during a voluntary workout supervised by MU athletic training staff.
His father, Lonnie O'Neal, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Aug. 23 alleging that 14 university officials were negligent and caused his son's death.
St. Louis attorney Robert O'Neal filed affidavits last week in Boone County Circuit Court saying a Florida expert could be called to testify against five defendants named in the lawsuit: Head Athletic Trainer Rex Sharp and trainers Alfred Castillo, Eric McDonnell, Greg Nagel and Pat Beckmann.
The expert, who is not identified in the court documents, is Douglas Kleiner, director of research at the University of Florida's Health Science Center in Jacksonville. Kleiner is a doctor who specializes in sports injuries and also is a licensed athletic trainer.
Reached yesterday, Kleiner confirmed he is the "legally qualified health-care provider" mentioned in the affidavits, but he declined to comment further without permission from Robert O'Neal.
"I really don't know what I'm allowed to say at this time," Kleiner said.
O'Neal did not return calls yesterday or respond to an e-mail sent to his office.
After the workout during which he collapsed, Aaron O'Neal was taken first to MU's athletic training facility near Memorial Stadium and later to University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Nagel, in a 911 call placed shortly after O'Neal collapsed, indicated the former Parkway North High School star might have been suffering from heat exhaustion.
Boone County Medical Examiner Valerie Rao ruled that the cause of death was viral meningitis, a rarely fatal disease that causes inflammation of the tissues and infection of the fluid covering the brain and spinal cord.
If called to testify, court documents say, Kleiner will say the trainers "failed to use such care as a reasonably prudent and careful health-care provider would have under similar circumstances and that such failure ... directly caused or directly contributed to cause" O'Neal's death.
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Source: Columbia Daily Tribune
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