Youth Boxer Remains in Coma

Posted: May15, 2008

Juan Contreras liked boxing from a young age. A young age. Juan is only 12-years old now. But he liked boxing for sometime and he bugged mom, Rosemary, for a year to let him participate before she finally gave in. That was in February. A month later, the young boxer collapsed in the ring and was rushed to a nearby hospital. Now, exactly two months later still, the boy who wanted to box lies in an Ann Arbor hospital bed in a coma. If he wakes from his coma, Juan is not expected to fully recover.

Everyone in boxing knows the sport can be dangerous. It’s a combat sport. That other person in the ring is trying to hit you. Hell, he’s trying to knock you out. Whether he’s 12- or 25-years old, a boxer wants the dramatic win. Just because the judges score a knockdown as one point – the same as a punch, no more – does not stop boxers young and old from wanting to remove the judges from the equation. But none of them wants this. A boy fighting for his very life, being fed thru a tube, unaware of things happening around him, twitching and convulsing uncontrollably, so completely dependent on others for everything. And, a heartsick family. Don’t forget the family.

Juan Contreras, 12, was injured during an amateur boxing match on March 15. It is the first serious injury in roughly 37 years in Michigan. Photo: Sportssummary.com

Life has not been normal for Jose and Rosemary Contreras and their other four children since that fateful March Saturday. The family spends much of each day alternating between Juan’s hospital room and a visitor lounge down the hall. For the first three weeks after her son’s injury, Rosemary literally lived in a room down the hall from her son at Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo where Juan was taken directly from the Chenery Club show.

Family members spent Rosemary’s birthday, March 30, at Juan’s side in a Kalamazoo hospital instead of back in Texas as planned. Juan loved the family tradition that took the family of seven back, four hours south of Corpus Christi, and always meant a trip south of the border where one of Juan’s favorite activities was riding a mechanical bull.

“I miss him so much,” Rosemary said, her eyes beginning to water, as she recalled Juan’s dramatic way of getting off the bull. Instead of merely jumping off, as most people do, the athletic Juan always did a flip during his dismount.

Juan had set a reminder on his cell phone to coincide with the planned trip that now didn’t occur. A family tradition now looks likely to be altered forever.

Once Juan was transferred to Sparrow Hospital in the family’s hometown of Lansing, Rosemary was able to spend less time at the hospital, able to sleep in her own bed at night. She was at her young son’s side from 7am to 10pm everyday. In the past ten days, Juan was transferred again – to C.S. Mott Childrens Hospital at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Another daily road trip for mom, Rosemary.

A boy’s life

Juan Contreras in an undated photograph, courtesy of the Contreras family.

While Juan pressed his mother for a year to let him begin boxing, the pugilistic arts were not the pre-teen’s only sporting interests.

Described as a natural athlete – a trait he shared more with his older sister, Crystal, than his studious twin brother, Jose – he enjoyed, and according to his mother, excelled at, other sports including basketball, football and more recently, golf. He was looking forward to being his father’s golf partner this year.

“Anything he tried, he’s mostly good at,” Rosemary said proudly.

For Halloween, less than five months before his accident, Juan dressed up like a boxer. He drew himself a black eye and said he was Oscar De La Hoya. The five-time world champion and 1992 Olympic gold medalist is Juan’s favorite boxer.

Besides sports, Juan was also a music nut. He was always holding his cell phone, which doubled as an MP3 player, to his ear listening to hip-hop and rap music. One of his favorite artists was Lil Wayne, the 23-year old New Orleans rapper that started performing at the age of ten.

Rosemary recalls a recent time when it was Juan’s chore to take the trash out to the road. The task was taking longer than it should have and she noticed that Juan was carrying just one bag at a time. In his other hand, he held his phone to his ear listening to music. That’s Juan.

I’m going to let him hit me first

In his first amateur boxing match, at the end of February, Juan was declared the winner after the referee stopped the contest at a club show in St. Clair Shores. Juan’s coach, Ali Easley, recalls the young boxer as a big puncher. Rosemary says that Juan was concerned that he might have hurt the other youth and made a point of going over to check on him. The other boy was fine, but Juan’s mom says her son was still concerned.

“I’m going to let him hit me first,” Juan reportedly told his mother before his second fight.

The boxing match

Rosemary didn’t attend Juan’s second fight, or his first several weeks earlier. She couldn’t bring herself to watch someone hit her baby, she says. Juan’s father and an uncle were in the stands on March 15 to cheer him on.

Before leaving home for the fight, Juan listened to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” over-and-over. It was one of his favorite songs and his personal boxing theme. He probably listened to it during the 2-3 hour pre-fight registration, matching and examinations in Kalamazoo.

Juan’s bout was the second on a 20-plus bout card. Wearing his Crown Boxing uniform, blue shorts and a gold colored shirt emblazed with the name Crown, Juan fought out of the blue corner in a 120-lb contest.

The young boxer knocked his 13-year old debuting opponent down with a left hand just before the bell ended the second round. Contreras appeared to dominate the end of the round even before the knockdown. Round three was his opponent’s turn, however, as he bolted from the corner landing a flurry of punches to Juan’s head causing referee Sean Curtain to step in and administer a standing 8-count to Contreras. During the count, Curtain waved off the fight, giving the victory to Juan’s opponent, and called the doctor into the ring.

The walls of Amateur boxer Juan Contreras' hospital room are decorated with cards and messages from friends and strangers alike. The 12-year old Lansing youth has been in a coma since collapsing during his second fight in mid-March. Photo: Sportssummary.com

Coach Ali Easley was first in the ring, bringing the corner stool in with him. Contreras partly collapsed into the arms of Referee Curtain who, along with Easley, seated the boy on the stool several feet inside the rope. Easley kneeled and spoke with his young fighter, joined by the doctor. Nothing seemed out of the usual. No clue that something was seriously wrong. The doctor asked the usual questions: Do you know your name? Do you know where you are? Do you know who I am? Juan’s answers were correct, except for the last one. He didn’t know who the ring doctor was. The doctor smiled and joked. There was no reason for Juan to know the doctor.

The doctor must not have liked something that he saw as he examined Juan, however. He wanted to remove the stool and lay Juan on the canvas. The 120-lb boy was easily lifted to his feet by his coach. Easley wanted to know if Juan had his legs but it was becoming clear that his young boxer was having real problems. There was no rigidity in the youth’s legs.

Easley laid the boy on his back on the floor of the ring and that’s when it was apparent to spectators that something was seriously wrong. Most boxers move from the stool to out of the ring.

To anyone that might have seen Juan’s first fight, that second round might have given them reason to expect a repeat. At the club show in St. Clair Shores in February, it was Juan’s hand that was raised when the referee stopped the action. Now, some two weeks later, his A-Square Fight Club opponent’s hand was raised and then he was ushered from the ring as Juan was lying on his back being attended to by the ringside physician and coach Easley.

According to one of the ring officials present that night, Juan’s bout had been low-scoring, with few punches counted from either boy, and nothing seemed unusual. Even after the boy boxer was rushed away by ambulance the official said he didn’t see a point before the referee stopped the fight where either boxer looked at risk. It was an unremarkable bout, so it seemed. With the experience of having refereed and judged some 21,000 amateur fights, there was nothing he would have done differently if it had been him officiating in the ring.

An ambulance was called and transported Juan to nearby Bronson Methodist Hospital. At what point Juan lost consciousness is not known, but once he did he has not woke up.

After the fight

Juan underwent immediate surgery to drain blood caused by a subdural hematoma that was causing pressure on his brain, cutting off needed oxygen.

Juan fell into a coma from which he has not awoken. Today marks his 60th day in a hospital bed. He remains unresponsive and unaware. Unresponsive to stimuli like pain or to a mother’s kiss on his cheek. Unaware of his family’s very presence beside him.

Some experts believe that coma patients may, in fact, be aware on some level of what is happening around them. They just are not able to express that awareness. That belief is perhaps why Juan’s family does not discuss the end of his boxing days in front of him. For they admit, if Juan one day wakes up and is able to, he would want to box again.

The Lawyer

Sportssummary is asking all boxing clubs to conduct an ongoing bottle and can drive to help Juan's family. Click to enlarge poster.

Due to mounting medical bills – more than $400,000 as of May 1 – the family felt the need to hire an attorney. James Brady is the father of a longtime family friend, Lisa Brady, and an attorney who specializes in serious injury cases. His task is to investigate the circumstances that put Juan in the ring that March day and to find someone, some entity, to help share in the expected multi-million dollar expense of Juan’s long-term care.

USA Boxing provides insurance to registered boxers in the amount of $350,000 per incident, according to Attorney Brady. With Juan’s medical bills surpassing that amount in the first 45 days, the family will require assistance in paying the bills. The same would be true for all but a small minority of amateur boxers, the vast majority of whom tend to be poorer, inner-city youth.

Rumors swirl around the edge of Juan’s story like leaves in a breeze.

Perhaps the two most prevalent rumors – and the two most likely to play prominently in any possible future civil case – concern the issue of Juan’s registration and whether a pre-existing injury, and not boxing, was the cause of his collapse.

(c) 2008, Sportssummary.com