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TYLER \u2013 Dr. Robert French with UT Health East Texas Orthopedic gave his thoughts on potential causes behind student-athlete deaths during sports activities, in an interview with our news parter KETK.<\/p>\nTYLER \u2013 Dr. Robert French with UT Health East Texas Orthopedic gave his thoughts on potential causes behind student-athlete deaths during sports activities, in an interview with our news parter KETK.<\/p>\n
The University Scholastic League (UIL) is still investigating the death of a student athlete at Marshall ISD. Questions are stirring about how Estefani Cabrera died after cross-country practice on a hot day in August.<\/p>\n
\u201cRisk factors for these really unfortunate circumstances can be a multitude,\u201d Dr. French said. <\/p>\n
Estefani turned 15 years old just a few days before her death on Aug 19. The UIL is investigating after she suffered a medical emergency following practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times you will see those external symptoms, the dizziness, the confusion, the fainting, obviously, before you can tell if anything\u2019s happening inside,\u201d French said.<\/p>\n
She was not the first Texas student athlete to die in August. Lancaster ISD lost a football player who suffered a heatstroke during his practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best way to avoid these catastrophic issues is to get them cool on the sideline. Even before you call 911, you want them cooled and you want the temperature to start going down even before you start transport to the next hospital or to wherever they are getting definitive care,\u201d French said.<\/p>\n
In 2023, UIL required teams to use the wet bulb globe temperature to monitor conditions and determine if practice is safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt measures the heat that is outside, it also takes the humidity that is outside and then it also takes the temperature directly with the sun radiation and kind of adds all that together to get this happy temperature of what it really is and what it feels like and where it\u2019s safe for them to be outside,\u201d Bullard ISD Athletic Director, Vanessa Dockter said.<\/p>\n
Temperatures were forecasted at 97 degrees, the day Estefani died, and an autopsy has been ordered to determine her exact cause of death. French said that in any student-athlete death, many factors can come into play.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if it\u2019s not that hot outside, they could have been sick a week ago, had a fever. All of a sudden, their internal thermostats were running a little bit higher than maybe it would if they hadn\u2019t been recently sick,\u201d French said.<\/p>\n
The best advice to parents, coaches and trainers is to keep a close eye on their student\u2019s symptoms. Most importantly, a reminder to students to listen to their bodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TYLER \u2013 Dr. Robert French with UT Health East Texas Orthopedic gave his thoughts on potential causes behind student-athlete deaths during sports activities, in an interview with our news parter KETK. The University Scholastic League (UIL) is still investigating the death of a student athlete at Marshall ISD. Questions are stirring about how Estefani Cabrera … Continue reading East Texas doctor explains possible causes of student-athlete death<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1439923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/09\/2025-09-05_081914-e1757078414837-200x200.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1439778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news-archive-archives"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-10 05:37:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/wp-content\/media\/2025\/09\/2025-09-05_081914-e1757078414837-200x200.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1439778"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1440220,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439778\/revisions\/1440220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1439923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1439778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1439778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1439778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}