A North Carolina family is in mourning after a 13-year-old middle school football player went into cardiac arrest and died during practice.
Caden Sorrell, a student at Northwest Guilford Middle School in Greensboro, N.C., had just completed one lap around the practice field when he suddenly went into cardiac arrest.
The young player was rushed to a local hospital, where he died three days later.
“Caden was an angel from heaven; he was brilliant, sweet, smart, kind; he made everybody around him feel loved,” his older sister, Vanessa Clark, told WXII.
“He was a picture of health. We don’t know why [it happened], but it did,” she added.
Clark shared a personal memory of a moment with her brother, who wore the No. 42 and rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
“We were trying to wrestle because I thought I could take him, and I couldn’t. He taught me the hard way that I could not, but it was just the laughter that we shared together,” Clark said.
The grieving older sibling went on to describe her final moments with her brother.
“I was praying for him, and I hoped that he got better, that he was healed, which he was spiritually,” Clark said. “I’m there for him, and I love him.”
A GoFundMe has been established to cover medical and funeral expenses, as well as the costs of further medical treatment for Caden’s four surviving siblings, to rule out any genetic cause that may have triggered the cardiac event.