KATY, Texas – A family and community are mourning after a student athlete died on the first day of basketball practice at Cy-Fair ISD’s Thornton Middle School.
Xavier Thompson, 13, is believed to have had a deadly asthma attack on Friday, Nov. 15 but his family has questions about whether school staff took action fast enough.
Thompson has played sports like basketball and football his entire life and has also lived with asthma, his mother Brittany Thompson said, noting that it’s never been with complications.
"Xavier was vibrant, and he was full of life, and he touched everybody that he met," Brittany Thompson said.
The day before his death, he celebrated and danced in his home living room, ecstatic about making the team.
“He kept calling me from the camera, and he kept blowing up my phone,” Brittany Thompson said.
The very next day, on the first day of practice, everything changed.
“He said, ‘Okay, mommy, we have practice and daddy’s going to pick me up. I told daddy, be here 4:30,‘ and I said, ’Okay,’ and that was the last time I talked to him,” Brittany Thompson said.
For that, she wishes she could turn back time.
While at work, she got a call from her son’s friend in a panic, who told her Xavier had an asthma attack. He had two inhalers in the locker room, she said, but they apparently weren’t accessible fast enough.
She instructed the friend to call her husband, who was near the school and about to go pick Xavier up. She said her husband then got a call from the coach, who asked if they should call for help.
“My husband was like, ‘Yes! Call 911! I’m on my way,‘” she said.
Medics finally arrived around the time her husband did, she said, but it’s still unclear what help school staff provided, and how long it took between the beginning of Xavier’s distress and placing the 911 call.
“It’s way longer than it should have been,” the family’s attorney George Powell said. “If the facts bear out to be what we think they are, we think that this amounts to gross negligence and we intend to pursue it."
By the time medics took Xavier to the hospital, his mom said he didn’t have a heartbeat. Once there, doctors couldn’t do much to help.
“I kept grabbing his hands. And they were... They weren’t sticky anymore. I kind of started to know a little bit like, okay, maybe he’s not coming back,” Brittany Thompson said, noting his hands were typically clammy.
His friends and classmates gathered at a park near the middle school on Friday evening, where Xavier’s name was spelled out with lit candles. They hugged and wept after releasing balloons in his memory.
“I don’t want anybody to feel this pain, it’s unbearable,” Brittany Thompson said. “I just want to know when I bring my baby to school that you will do everything in your power to make sure that they are okay.”
The school principal sent a letter to families and said counselors were available to meet with students. Cy-Fair ISD hasn’t answered any other questions, and Thompson and her attorney said they haven’t heard from district leaders, even to offer condolences.
Xavier’s funeral is planned for Saturday.