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Rugby player drops lawsuit over injury

With an ambulance standing by in the background in case of injury, the Saranac Lake Mountaineers Rugby Club, at left, faces off against the East Side Hyenas Sunday in the Can-Am Rugby Tournament’s social division championship match at North Country Community College in Saranac Lake. The Mountaineers won 36-32 to claim their first social division title in the tournament’s 44-year history. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)

SARANAC LAKE — A Long Island man says he is dropping a lawsuit he filed against organizers of the Can-Am Rugby Tournament over a serious head injury he suffered during a match in 2014.

Dan Nelson, of Center Moriches, faxed a statement to the Enterprise on Thursday, three years to the day after he was injured while playing for the Brockport Doggies team in the championship game for the over-45-year-old men’s division.

“After much consideration, I have decided to no longer pursue litigation in regard to my injury,” Nelson wrote. “It was never my intent to jeopardize the continuation of the tournament that has meant the world to me for nearly 40 years.

“I am pleased to know that medical personnel and ambulances are now present at ALL games,” Nelson continued. “Wishing everyone endless safe and fun-filled rugby weekends in the beautiful Saranac Lake and Lake Placid regions!”

Nelson didn’t leave a phone number in the fax, so the Enterprise wasn’t immediately able to confirm his decision to drop the suit. A message left for Nelson’s lawyer, Heather Nathan, wasn’t immediately returned. As of this morning, nothing had been filed in the court docket for the case indicating it has been discontinued.

The news that Nelson said he is ending the litigation came as a surprise to the people he sued. Tournament organizer Jay Annis said he hadn’t heard of it until the Enterprise sent him a copy of Nelson’s statement. He declined to comment until speaking with his lawyer.

“Wow. You just made my day,” Saranac Lake Volunteer Rescue Squad President Julie Harjung said. “I had not heard that.”

The lawsuit dates to the Aug. 3, 2014, championship game on a field behind the Bloomingdale Volunteer Fire Department, when the then-57-year-old Nelson’s head struck the chest and knee of an opposing player he was trying to tackle. He fell to the ground and was unresponsive. Spectators thought he was dead, police said at the time.

The rescue squad responded, Nelson was given CPR on the field, transported to Adirondack Medical Center in Saranac Lake and later airlifted to University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington.

The lawsuit, filed in December 2015, says Nelson suffered “a traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injuries, loss of memory and other serious personal and emotional injuries.” In a deposition filed with the court, Nelson said he didn’t remember anything about playing that day, including how he got hurt.

He claimed organizers were negligent by not having proper medical personnel on site and failing to provide proper medical treatment to him. Nelson sued Adirondack Rugby Inc., which does business as Can-Am Rugby, as well as the town of St. Armand, Essex County and the village of Saranac Lake. He later added Adirondack Health, the local hospital group, to the list.

The defendants denied any wrongdoing. Among other things, they said Nelson should have known there was a chance he could get hurt when he signed up for the tournament.

“We did nothing wrong, but it doesn’t stop anybody from suing,” Harjung said Thursday. “It was just an unfortunate accident. He’s still alive today, so something went right.”

Harjung said the lawsuit affected this year’s tournament, which took place last weekend. She said Adirondack Health didn’t provide the trainers for the event it had provided in years past.

“They were like, ‘Why would we do this great community service if we’re going to get sued,'” Harjung said. “They had to go out and find trainers from elsewhere.”

An Adirondack Health spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a phone message Thursday.

Asked about the part of Nelson’s statement that says medical personnel and ambulances are now present at all games, Harjung said that actually wasn’t the case this year.

“There were medical personnel at most games this year, but not an ambulance,” she said. “We did what we have always done, which is commit one ambulance. Otherwise, we can’t service the rest of the community. This time, we were at four different locations at one time, and that was a huge drain on resources. We had one ambulance and either ALS [Advanced Life Support] or BLS [Basic Life Support] providers at the other fields with the ability to call for more help if needed.”

Rugby is known for its hard-hitting action. Harjung said this year’s Can-Am tournament featured plenty of typical injuries.

“A broken wrist, broken collarbone, twisted ankles, head injuries — but nothing life-threatening,” she said.

Last year, a rugby player from Ottawa, Ontario, collapsed during a match on a field in Saranac Lake and later died at the hospital of an apparent heart attack.

There are no longer rugby matches on the Bloomingdale field, which is owned by the town of St. Armand. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, Supervisor Charlie Whitson said his town board voted, based on the advice of its insurance company, to no longer host rugby games on the field out of fear that the town could be sued again if someone got hurt.

“I don’t think, even if I was to bring it up now, that the board would reverse that choice,” he said Thursday.

Whitson said he hasn’t received any legal notification and didn’t know Nelson decided to end the lawsuit until a reporter read him the statement, but he was glad to hear it.

“It’s too bad that it happened. I sympathize with that,” Whitson said. “But I do think the rugby association should come out with rules to check people’s ages and make sure they’re playing in the right bracket. You know as well as I do, my mind says, ‘Yes I can do it,’ but my body says, ‘The hell you can.'”

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