California high school wrestler paralyzed after injury in match

A California high school wrestler was paralyzed from the neck down from an injury suffered during a junior varsity match last week, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Ryan Joseph, a 16-year-old sophomore at College Park High in Pleasant Hill, was unable to breathe on his own after suffering a spinal cord injury Wednesday.

“The guy took him down and put him in a hold, and then the ref shook him off and he shook his head like, ‘I can’t get up,’ ” Adam Samhan, a friend since kindergarten, told ABC7News.com. “So he just laid there and the ambulance had to come and take him.”

Joseph is being treated at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek.

Athletic director Jim Keck told the Chronicle that Joseph is: “one of the most positive kids, a joker, fantastic sense of humor. He’s always trying to make other people smile.”

Joseph has deep wrestling roots.

His father, Tom Joseph, was a hall of fame football player and wrestler at De La Salle. His uncle, Mike Halket, once coached wrestling at Dublin.

A gofundme.com page has been created to help the family cover medical expenses, rehabilitation and home accessibility.

Based on data from 2012, Propertycasualty360.com reported that wrestling was the seventh most dangerous sport to participate in, with 40,750 injuries that year.

This story was originally published January 15, 2018 at 10:58 PM with the headline "California high school wrestler paralyzed after injury in match."