Fourteen-year-old boy suffers stroke at wrestling camp

A 14-year-old boy is recovering after suffering a stroke at an Oklahoma wrestling camp.

Luke Champion, an eighth-grade student at Tuttle Middle School in Tuttle, Oklahoma, had won his last match at the Oklahoma State University camp when his mother noticed something was badly wrong.

“I just commented to his brother that he looked sleepy and then he laid back and I’m like, We’re going have to go wake your brother up because he has to wrestle again,” said Valorie Champion.

“I yelled at him to wake up and he opened his eyes and as soon as he did, his face drooped and he started slurring his words.”

Ms Champion said she knew it was a stroke as her other son had one as a baby.

Luke was taken to the hospital in Stillwater and then transferred to OU Children’s Hospital in Oklahoma City to undergo multiple brain surgeries for a blood clot.

“He immediately went in and had a thrombectomy, which is they go in and basically retrieve the clot,” said his mother.

“He started experiencing some brain swelling and not just really waking up. They went in and did a craniotomy, which is basically they open up the side of his skull and it allows for his brain to expand.”

Luke has now been woken up and taken off a ventilator and started on therapy.

“It’s all kind of starting to crash in on him that he’s in the hospital,” she added. “He’s hurt enough that he’s got the world praying for him.

“They keep telling us it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Just continue to pray. We feel all the prayers. We feel all the love.”

In a video message for a rally at his school, Luke told his supporters, “I love you.”