{"id":418929,"date":"2010-03-11T19:45:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T00:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef01310f8ff675970c"},"modified":"2010-03-11T19:44:49","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T00:44:49","slug":"costa-mesa-eighth-grader-dies-playing-handball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/418929","title":{"rendered":"Costa Mesa eighth-grader dies playing handball"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 14-year-old Costa Mesa Middle School student died Wednesday after collapsing while playing handball after school, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Eighth-grader Eric Valdez collapsed about 4:30 p.m. on the campus handball court, where he was playing with his brother and a friend, said Laura Boss, spokeswoman for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Police and fire officials arrived and administered CPR before taking him to Hoag Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
<\/br> <\/p>\n

The coroner’s office has classified the case as an unexpected natural death, Boss said.<\/p>\n

Crisis counselors were on the campus shared by middle school\u00a0 and high school students Thursday, and students put up a memorial on a wall where friends could write messages of remembrance, Boss said. The school district posted a statement<\/a> on its website mourning Valdez’s death. <\/p>\n

Valdez’s brother, who was with him when he collapsed, is also an eighth-grader at the school.<\/p>\n

In a statement, middle school Principal Aaron Peralta described Valdez as a good-natured, smiling young man who enjoyed handball and was beloved by his teachers.<\/p>\n

"Our thoughts and prayers are with the Valdez family, and as a school community we will come together to support them in whatever way we can," Boss said. "It’s a very, very sad day."<\/p>\n

— Tony Barboza in Costa Mesa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 14-year-old Costa Mesa Middle School student died Wednesday after collapsing while playing handball after school, authorities said. Eighth-grader Eric Valdez collapsed about 4:30 p.m. on the campus handball court, where he was playing with his brother and a friend, said Laura Boss, spokeswoman for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District. Police and fire officials arrived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}