SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (KCAL\/KCBS) \u2013 A Southern California community is mourning the sudden loss of a 12-year-old soccer player who collapsed during practice.<\/p>\n
While the tragedy left his coaches and teammates shocked, doctors said it is a critical reminder for parents of young athletes.<\/p>\n
Adriel Enriquez seemed perfectly healthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompletely caught us all off guard,\u201d soccer coach Garrett Blume said.<\/p>\n
Adriel\u2019s family said the 12-year-old was having trouble breathing during soccer practice just a week ago. He suddenly collapsed, went into cardiac arrest and died.<\/p>\n
Blume, a former professional soccer coach, was one of Adriel\u2019s trainers.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdriel is one of the reasons why I started coaching after playing soccer,\u201d Blume said. \u201cJust kids like him that, \u2018Yes sir,\u2019 just put their head down, work super hard, sweet, respectful and just he\u2019s always looking out for other people as well. So, yeah, I\u2019m going to miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blume said the 12-year-old would work on his game nearly every day.<\/p>\n
Adriel\u2019s family said he had no known medical issues.<\/p>\n
While many from the Inland Empire soccer community are left shocked by his passing, one pediatrician said a cardiac arrest event like this is not uncommon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis actually is one of the most common things that end up actually hitting our kids, but the most important part of this is that it\u2019s extremely rare, even though that we\u2019re seeing it. That doesn\u2019t mean that we cannot do something about it,\u201d Dr. Ilam Shapiro said.<\/p>\n
The Mayo Clinic reports that about one in 50,000 to one in 80,000 young athletes die of sudden cardiac death each year.<\/p>\n
Shapiro said parents sharing any family heart health history with their child\u2019s doctor can help prevent these types of events.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis actually helps a lot because at the moment that we hear a murmur or something is changing, that can actually prompt us to an EKG, an ultrasound of the heart to make sure that everything is in order for them to be protected and enjoy sports,\u201d Shapiro said.<\/p>\n
As the Inland Empire soccer community comes together to remember the life of a bright young man and his passion for soccer, it\u2019s that love of the game that turns into support for Adriel\u2019s family in this difficult time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be there for them no matter what and better days are going to come,\u201d Blume said.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KCAL\/KCBS via CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (KCAL\/KCBS) \u2013 A Southern California community is mourning the sudden loss of a 12-year-old soccer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[204711,29026,204712,49,3335,48,61937,10492,34983,7666,561,82],"class_list":["post-517934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-adriel","tag-arrest","tag-bernardino","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-canada","tag-cardiac","tag-player","tag-practice","tag-san","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}