We are happy to share that all members of the men’s lacrosse team that were admitted to the hospital with rhabdomyolysis (rhabdo) have been discharged. As you likely know, several members of the team developed rhabdo following a voluntary, supervised, 45-minute workout that the team conducted on September 16. The workout was led by a Tufts alum and recent graduate of the BUD/S Navy SEAL training program who had been invited to lead the session. We want to express how grateful we are that the team members have returned to good health. We commend the team’s resilience, admire how they cared for one another during a difficult time, and thank their families for their unwavering support.
Moving forward, we must come to a clear understanding of what happened and ensure it never happens again. Toward that end, we have retained D. Rod Walters II, a nationally recognized expert in the care and prevention of student-athlete injuries, and Randy Aliment of the law firm Lewis Brisbois to conduct a thorough and independent investigation to determine exactly what happened before, during, and after the workout; assess the university’s response; assess our conditioning and training protocols; and review our procedures and policies to determine what changes we should make to prevent this from happening again. Dr. Walters has 17 years of experience conducting such investigations, including major investigations at the University of Maryland and Garden City Community College. We will give Dr. Walters and Mr. Aliment all the time and information they need to carry out a thorough investigation, and we anticipate it will take some time. We will share the findings with the community once the investigation has concluded.
We know you have lots of questions. Frankly, we do as well. And we know that it may be frustrating that we have not yet provided answers to all the questions that have been posed to us. However, we are following investigative best practices by refraining from making public statements to avoid unintentionally influencing the direction of the independent investigation. We are committed to conducting a thorough, unbiased investigation that ultimately leads to better and safer training practices for our student athletes.
Sincerely,
Sunil Kumar
President
Bárbara M. Brizuela
Dean ad interim, School of Arts and Sciences
Kyongbum Lee
Dean, School of Engineering
