Rugby player dies after making tackle

A tragic story out of Milwaukee was reported yesterday, but I just came across it a few minutes ago.

On April 3, Philippe Leka, a Fiji native and 32-year old father of a 1 1/2 year old girl, was making a tackle like he’s done all his life.

“He packed a punch like no other,” said Ben Smith, the Harlequins’ captain. “You knew it was him when he hit you. If your head was in a pile and all of a sudden you got smashed, you knew it was ‘Fiji’ without even looking.”

This tackle, though, proved to be fatal for the 6’2 190-pound Leka.

“I saw his face go pale,” Smith says. “I was yelling, ‘Give him room.’ He was gasping for air.”

Leka and the ball carrier had met head-to-head, and the force of the impact fractured Leka’s C-2 vertebra. Broken necks occur in rugby and other contact sports, but a fracture so high in the cervical vertebrae is extremely rare.

Though an ambulance arrived within minutes and Leka was rushed to Froedtert Hospital, there was little doctors could do. Eleven days later, on April 14, he died from “diffused anoxic brain injury preceded by a broken neck.”

From the story, “To Leka, rugby was more than a game. It was part of his tribal culture and his identity. He was raised in Nayawa village in Fiji, where rugby is the national sport.

“The guy loved rugby,” one of his teammates said. “He had four loves in his life: Fiji, Lili, Xyella and rugby. That’s what he loved, and that’s what brought him into our lives.”

While rugby is known to a violent sport with nonstop contact and with players who wear no padding, death is a rare occurrence, though really… just one death is too many for a sport.

According to the story, earlier this year, a player competing in a rugby tournament in Florida suffered a broken neck, resulting in quadriplegia. In 2009, four players died from rugby injuries worldwide, according to the International Rugby Board.

One can only hope his last thoughts were bliss in the fact he was making a play and playing a game he loved. Not sure if anything will be examined or changed in the sport from this, as most are calling it a freak accident. Hopefully, they’re right.