Rochester football player Carter Mason recovering in hospital after in-game head injury, brain bleed

By: Chris Harlan
Tuesday, October 8, 2024 | 10:04 AM

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Terri Mason was home watching a livestream of the Rochester football game when she realized something was wrong.

“No. 8 didn’t come back on that field,” said Mason, who was looking for her son, Carter, a senior running back. “Next thing you know, they said a Rochester player went down. When they did a play without my son, I knew it had to be him.

“Not 30 seconds later, every parent in the stands was calling my phone, telling me he was unresponsive, unconscious, having seizures and they’re life flighting him.”

Her 18-year-old son sustained a serious head injury in Friday’s game at Shenango and remained hospitalized at UPMC Children’s, Mason said Monday. She said Carter had a concussion, something he’d had several of before, and a brain bleed, but one that hasn’t required surgery.

The days since have proven to be difficult, but Mason said she’d seen positive signs.

“He has definitely improved from Friday night,” she said. “He looks way different. He told me today, ‘I love you, Mama,’ and ‘Thank you, Mama,’ but his eyes are closed.

“You can see in his face he’s trying to put two and two together. It takes a lot of energy because his brain is still trying to connect back together, it seems.”

A 5-foot-8, 170-pound running back and defensive back, Carter Mason has played football since he was 5, said his mother. He scored a couple of touchdowns last season and returned a punt 66 yards for one this year, but injuries have limited his playing days.

He’d already had “three or four” concussions, Terri Mason said, and knee surgery cost him most of his junior season, but he always came back. She called football his passion.

“He loves football,” Mason said. “And this was his senior year, so this was it for him.”

Carter Mason wore a padded cover on his helmet, a protective shell designed to lessen impact. Terri Mason said the Rochester team uses them at practice, and she insisted her son wear his during games as an extra precaution.

Still, there was concern.

“If it were up to me, I would’ve told him no. He’d have stopped playing two years ago,’” Terri Mason said. “But it’s what he wants to do. It’s what he loves to do.”

She said he’d had a concussion close to two months ago, but also took a hard hit one week before facing Shenango.

“We went through all the procedures,” Terri Mason said. “Went to the concussion clinics and he got cleared. He passed the tests, so I thought he was OK.”

With less than 10 minutes left in Friday’s fourth quarter, Rochester held a six-point lead over host Shenango. Carter Mason gained a couple of yards on a carry near midfield but laid on the turf for a few extra seconds after the tackle before standing up.

He walked to Rochester’s sideline and stood between his teammates, facing the field. But both hands were on his helmet as he tilted his head forward.

With 9:10 left, the game was paused and the play-by-play announcer on the Lawrence County SportsNet video stream noted that a Rochester player was down.

The camera was pointed elsewhere.

Terri Mason said she was told her son collapsed on the sideline and had what looked to be seizures. He was unresponsive and began to regurgitate, she said, so medical responders were concerned about his breathing.

“They had to intubate him on the track right in front of the stands,” she said. “This was traumatizing to the kids, the adults, everyone.”

Terri Mason has two other children, a 14-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter, so traveling to road games isn’t always doable. Besides, she said, the brakes on her car went out the day before, so she didn’t make the 30-mile drive north.

But once she learned Carter was injured, she was at the hospital within minutes of the helicopter arriving.

She said he wasn’t doing well.

“He wasn’t breathing on his own, he was unresponsive,” she said. “No signs of anything. Wasn’t wiggling his toes, moving his hands. Nothing.”

He’ll now briefly open his eyes, respond to voices and speak a few words, she said, now that he’s again breathing on his own. Football teammates have visited him daily, and his coaches came to the hospital Monday before practice.

“He has a good support system behind him,” Terri Mason said. “He’s such a good kid.”

A GoFundMe campaign started by her sister-in-law with a goal of $2,000 had raised more than $20,000 by Monday night.

In a social media post, the school said: “Our entire school community is praying for the young man who was injured during Friday night’s game. The Rochester Area School District, including families, students and staff send their thoughts and prayers to the student, his family, our coaches and team, along with the Rochester school community.”

The football team organized a prayer vigil at Rochester’s stadium Saturday.

Terri Mason spent all night Friday at the hospital with her young daughter. She hurried home Saturday morning to secure a babysitter and quickly returned to spend another night with her son.

She has continued to go back and forth.

“No sleep. No appetite,” Mason said, summing up her last few days, but she intends to keep it up. “I don’t want him to open his eyes and think nobody’s there.”

Specialists are eager to start him in therapy, she said, but added that doctors say his recovery will take time. He has undergone multiple scans, and she said he was scheduled for another MRI on Monday.

Avoiding any other complications during his recovery is also crucial.

“We’ve just got to take it day by day and let him sleep,” Mason said. “The more he sleeps, his brain will heal.”

She draws optimism from the moments when her son still sounds like himself, including once when his IV line was caught underneath him.

“The nurse was like, ‘Carter, let me see your arm. I’ve got to fix your line,’” Terri Mason said. “He was like, ‘I’ve got you.’”

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.

Tags: Rochester