{"id":13747,"date":"2025-05-27T13:18:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T01:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=13747"},"modified":"2025-05-27T13:18:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-27T01:18:12","slug":"teen-dies-after-suffering-head-injuries-in-tackle-game-with-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=13747","title":{"rendered":"Teen dies after suffering head injuries in ‘tackle game’ with friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 19-year-old man has died after he was critically injured playing a game based on the controversial\u00a0“Run It” craze<\/a>\u00a0with friends in Palmerston North.<\/p>\n

The man suffered serious head injury when tackled, and was taken to hospital by his friends, Police Manawat\u016b area commander Inspector Ross Grantham said.<\/p>\n

“Tragically, he passed away in hospital on Monday night,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This young man’s death is an absolute tragedy and my thoughts are with his family and friends.<\/p>\n

“The\u00a0tackle game played by the group of friends was based on a social media-driven trend<\/a>, where participants compete in full-contact collisions without protective gear.”<\/p>\n

Grantham said it was an impromptu game, rather than a planned event, but it did highlight concerns with safety.<\/p>\n

“We would urge anyone thinking about taking part in a game or event like this to consider the significant safety and injury risks.<\/p>\n

“While this is not a criminal matter, police will continue to undertake enquiries on behalf of the coroner.”<\/p>\n

The death comes after two men were knocked unconscious and required medical attention during a\u00a0Run It Straight competition<\/a>\u00a0at Auckland’s Trust Arena last week.<\/p>\n

One of the two appeared to have a seizure.<\/p>\n

The competition saw eight men put their bodies and brains on the line for $20,000 prize money.<\/p>\n

After last week’s competition, the sport has recently come under fire, with neuroscientists issuing grave warnings about the brutal sport’s risk.<\/p>\n

Chief executive of the Headway charity, Stacey Mowbray, told RNZ it was\u00a0undoubtedly causing brain injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She said the format and promotion of the events appeared to exploit financially vulnerable people by offering large cash prizes.<\/p>\n

As reported by the NZ Herald, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) had also distanced itself from the sport, believing the sport “carried significant risk of serious injury”.<\/p>\n

Source: RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 19-year-old man has died after he was critically injured playing a game based on the controversial\u00a0“Run It” craze\u00a0with friends in Palmerston North. The man suffered serious head injury when tackled, and was taken to hospital by his friends, Police Manawat\u016b area commander Inspector Ross Grantham said. “Tragically, he passed away in hospital on Monday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":13748,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13747"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13749,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13747\/revisions\/13749"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}