High school athlete dies after playing basketball at RAC

By Greg Baker

An accomplished high school athlete collapsed while playing basketball at the Ryerson’s Recreation and Athletics Centre during reading week and later died in hospital.

Adler Isidor, an 18-year-old OAC student at Francis Libermann Catholic High School in Scarborough, was visiting the RAC on Feb. 20 with his best friend Aris Caguimbal, a first-year retail management student at Ryerson.

The two were playing a game of pickup basketball when Isidor suddenly collapsed.

Caguimbal said RAC staff and a doctor from Ryerson’s Health Centre responded quickly and assisted Isidor until paramedics arrived.

“They were checking his pulse and giving him CPR,” Caguimbal said. “After that [the paramedics] told me to get out of the gym and they shocked his heart and gave him some drugs.”

Isidor was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital, where he died a short time later. Doctors still don’t know how a young man in apparently good health passed away so suddenly.

Isidor was a well-rounded athlete who played on his high school volleyball team. He also enjoyed playing basketball and won a provincial medal as a member of his school’s track and field relay team in 1997.

Wendell Isidor, Adler’s 23-year-old brother, is stunned.

“I still feel like he’s going to knock on the door and come inside,” he said Monday night from the family’s Scarborough home.

Wendell said his father Lamartin Isidor was in shock for three days following the news of his son’s death.

“It’s a big loss,” Lamartin said. “He was a very good son.”

Caguimbal said Adler was a popular student. “Whenever we’d hang around watching movies he’d invite anyone. It didn’t matter who it was.”

Wendell said the family was overwhelmed by the more than 800 people who attended the funeral last week to show their support.

“People were outside the church listening to the ceremony,” he said. “There were so many people we couldn’t have the reception at our house.”

Doctors have told the family more tests have to be done to determine why Adler died. It could be four to six weeks before they have an answer.