ATLANTA (Atlanta News First/Gray News) – A Georgia volleyball team held a vigil for a teenage girl who died shortly after collapsing during practice at the Tracey Wyatt Recreation Center in College Park.
“She brightened my day. If I had a hard day, I’d come in and she’d greet me with a hug,” coach Maya Rembert said.
The city of College Park released a video of 15-year-old Amanda Sylvester jogging with her volleyball teammates as she suddenly started having trouble.
“She started to drop knees, buckled and she fell onto the floor of the gymnasium,” said Bill Crane, a College Park spokesman. “Amanda was conscious. She was speaking. She was asking to lay down. She was seated at that point. She was saying she was a little bit dizzy at that point.”
Amanda’s coaches assisted her while the recreation center staff called 911.
“Within about eight minutes, College Park Fire Rescue was on the scene and was trying to assess and administer care,” said Crane.
Amanda lost consciousness again and her mother drove her to the hospital after an ambulance never arrived.
“Why didn’t they come?” Crane asked. “The bigger picture is there’s been a long-standing problem south of I-20 with having sufficient resources to handle the population.”
Amanda died at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta-Hughes Spalding Hospital.
“I reached out to Amanda that night, texting her, back to back, just hoping I got the call, text, anything from her,” said Rembert.
Her heartbroken team and coaches held candles to remember her.
“It was great to see everybody show up and just know how much she was loved and cared for, even by people who didn’t play on the same team as her, just to see how she impacted them,” said Alyssa Mitchell, her teammate.
Amanda’s cause of death is still unknown. A Fulton County Medical Examiner is conducting an autopsy.
“All she wanted was the sisterhood from them,” Rembert said. “So them showing up really, I feel like it did a lot.”
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