By Bob Sutton
Special to The Alamance News
An athletic trainer and other football staff members at Williams High School are credited with taking quick action to aid a fallen official at a junior varsity game last Thursday night at Burlington Memorial Stadium.
Taylor Howlett, who has been the trainer at Williams since January, led the response until emergency medical technicians arrived.
Howlett was informed by the referee, who heads the officiating crew, that one of the officials seemed to be having trouble during the Southern Durham/Williams game. Matthew Reid, who was manning the umpire position on the crew, was assisted to the Williams bench area.
There, he suffered a seizure.
“He became nonverbal,” Howlett said, noting that he and Williams staffers guided him to the ground.
His vitals were checked during what was about a two-minute seizure.
Elbert Lassiter, a high school football officiating booking agent for a 21-county region, was in attendance evaluating the crew.
“The athletic trainer at Williams and the others who helped did an amazing job,” Lassiter said. “Just so fortunate they were there to guide him to the ground and do what needed to be done.
“Even coaches chimed in to help. Everything worked the way it should have worked,” Lassiter added.
Reid, a Burlington man, is a relatively new official, who Lassiter described as having been excited to work games.
The official was placed in an ambulance, but he wasn’t transported to a hospital. Acquaintances who were contacted by Lassiter arrived at the stadium as his condition rapidly improved. Reid didn’t respond to an inquiry this week about his condition.
“It’s still a scary situation,” Howlett said. “We did good taking care of him.”
Howlett, who attended college at Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, worked in the Fort Myers, Florida, area prior to taking the position at Williams.
Word spread about the incident and the reaction.
“The fact that we have those people who are knowledgeable and know what to do is huge,” said Todd Davis, athletics director for the Alamance-Burlington School System.
After a pause, the game resumed. Another official who was in attendance filled in through the game’s completion. Lassiter said he was willing to do the same, but that wasn’t needed.
Lassiter, who’s based in Asheboro, said it was a statistical oddity that he was on site. He had 34 games under his jurisdiction to choose from that night.
“Turns out to be a good story,” Lassiter said. “Their staff did an amazing job. Everything turned out as good as it could.”
