Parents say injured Karns City quarterback slowly recovering
It’s been just over a month since Karns City Gremlins quarterback Mason Martin suffered a frightening injury during his team’s game against Redbank Valley. Since then, he has remained in a Pittsburgh-area hospital with serious injuries and has yet to regain full consciousness.
Mason’s family, shared an update on his condition on Saturday, Sept. 30, on the Facebook page of the Karns City football team. While Mason’s condition is still not ideal, the message brought cautious optimism.
“Mason has had a very good week,” his family wrote. “He is in a state that I have heard referred to as ‘responsive unconsciousness.’ Although he is unconscious, he is making improvements in his movements and reactions to sound and touch.”
According to the family’s account, rehabilitation doctors have been performing tests on Mason, using an electroencephalograph to determine whether his brain could respond to outside influence. The results showed that Mason was both hearing and processing commands from doctors.
“This is very encouraging and also gives the doctors specific areas of the brain to target during the onset of rehab,” wrote the Martin family.
The family added that the Karns City Area Jr./Sr. High School senior has been placed on a ventilator for only four total hours over the previous three days. This is a marked improvement over previous weeks when his condition sometimes deteriorated without warning and forced medical staff to take drastic action to save his life.
“Now we are shedding tears of joy and happiness rather than pain and heartache. Day by day he’s coming back to us,” wrote the Martins. “To be where he now is (is) a testament to the amazing power of prayer.”
Mason collapsed during the third quarter of the Karns City game against Redbank Valley on Sept. 1 while lining up for a kickoff return. He was flown to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh to be treated for a brain bleed and a collapsed lung.
Since then, a GoFundMe set up by Amanda Booher to support the Martin family has raised nearly $78,000.
