Meningitis, 17-year-old in resuscitation: all the Basketball Team mates at his bedside: “Don’t give up”

RISE PIO X – They should have challenged their opponents on the pitch. Instead yesterday afternoon they were in the hospital, with tears in their eyes, around the bedside of their teammate, who was hospitalized for meningitis. The 17-year-old from Bassano, player of the The Basketball Team of Riese it is very serious: struggle between life and death from a bed of the intensive care unit of the Bassano del Grappa hospital.
The meningeal infection is of bacterial origin: meningococcus type b. One of the most fearsome because it can cause permanent injuries. The prognosis is reserved and the doctors are not overwhelmed: the next few hours will be decisive. The young athlete is playing his decisive match. And the whole team, undergoing prophylaxis, is with him. With the same grit with which he fights in every match. The stakes, this time, are very high. Tears, long silences, hugs: yesterday some players, together with their coach, went to the hospital. “Thank you, he feels you’re here,” said the boy’s mother between sobs, embracing them one by one, supported by her husband and her younger son, a basketball player in Abruzzo and also rushed to his brother’s bedside.

SHOCK AND HOPE
«We are shocked – says the assistant coach and manager Massimo Sonda in a faint voice -. On Friday he trained with us, now he is hospitalized in intensive care. He is a super boy, on and off the pitch. He has temper, he has character. If I had a son I would want him to be just like him. Let’s pray that he makes it.” The comrades cry and hope. “We can’t do anything else. I’d stay here to watch over him for a whole year if he served – Sonda says trying to hold back the tears -. I feel like crying. We are destroyed but we do not stop hoping ».

Yesterday afternoon the team should have faced San Donà’s opponents in the Serie C Gold championship at home in Riese. The tap-off was set for 6pm. But the match was canceled due to the 17-year-old’s illness, which arrived like a bolt from the blue. On Friday the boy, who plays wing guard and is also registered with the Bassano MBA, trained as usual. «We pushed a lot in view of today’s match (yesterday, ed) – says the assistant coach -. He was fine. He was fit: he trains every day because he plays in two teams. He has a strong temper.’ No warning, therefore, of what would happen next. The first symptoms appeared during the night: a few lines of fever and a severe headache but nothing that would suggest a case of meningitis. On Saturday evening the boy had a fever of 40 and the parents decided to take him to the emergency room. Doctors immediately suspected it was meningitis. The confirmation came from the exams. And the diagnosis was a very hard blow, for everyone.
THE PROPHYLAXIS
Prophylaxis was immediately triggered on the 17-year-old’s close contacts, in order to avoid other cases. There are about sixty people who have been provided with antibiotic therapy and who are monitored by Ulss 7 Pedemontana and Ulss 2 Marca Trevigiana. Starting with the mates of the two teams, as well as obviously parents, classmates and friends. In recent days the boy had attended a birthday. Yesterday morning the players and technical staff were urgently summoned to the arena for prophylaxis and the club sanitized the equipment as a precautionary measure. «We have already given all the boys on the team prophylaxis – assures the director of Ulss 2 Francesco Benazzi -. We will monitor the evolution of the situation.” «The codified procedure for dealing with this type of emergency has proven to work well – adds his counterpart from Vicenza, Carlo Bramezza -. Diagnosis and contact tracing for prophylaxis were timely.”

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in Il Gazzettino