A Virginia high school track event last Tuesday ended with one athlete injured after she was hit in the head by a baton wielded by an opponent.
Kaelen Tucker was running in the 4X200 race for Brookville High School against I.C. Norcom High School in the Class 3 Track and Field State Finals when a Norcom runner struck her in the head with the baton that runners pass in relay races.
“When you go to the other side of the track, you have to cross into lane one, you have to merge in. As I was coming up on her, she kind of like made me get cut off a little bit, so I backed away,” Tucker said, according to WSLS-TV.
“Then, as we got around the curve, she kept bumping me in my arm. Then finally we got off the curve, I like slowly started passing her, and then that’s when she just hit me with the baton, and I fell off the track,” she said.
The incident was captured on a family video that has been posted to YouTube.
Norcom was disqualified because of the incident, which left Tucker with a throbbing head.
“I could feel like a headache coming up, so I just sat out,” Tucker said. “I recently went to the doctor, and they prescribed me with a concussion and a possible fractured skull.”
“I still can’t believe it. I’m in shock,” she said, according to WSET-TV. “I’m still trying to take it all in, I can’t believe it happened.”
Were officials right to disqualify I.C. Norcom?
Tamarrow Tucker, Kaelen’s mother, said the opposing team never batted an eye.
“No apologies. No coaches. No athlete. No anything. Even if it was an accident, which I don’t believe it was … nothing,” she said.
“The whole section just gasped,” Tamarrow Tucker said, according to Fox News.
“We had family come from out of town, her godparents were here from Myrtle Beach. Everybody just gasped. When I saw her go down, all I could do is run out of the bleachers. I just knew I had to get to her,” she said.
“She was kind of hysterical because she just couldn’t believe that’s what had happened.”
As video of the event circulated, Alaila Everett, the Norcom athlete who struck Tucker, said she is being unfairly portrayed, according to WAVY-TV.
“Everybody has feelings, so you’re physically hurt, but you’re not thinking of my mental,” Everett said. “It’s like they are going off of one angle.”
“After a couple times of hitting her, my baton got stuck behind her back like this, and it rolled up her back. I lost my balance when I pumped my arms again. She got hit,” Everett explained.
“I know my intentions, and I would never hit someone on purpose,” she said.
“They are assuming my character, calling me ghetto and racial slurs, death threats … all of this off of a nine second video.”
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