Matthew Mayich's medical crisis has reached the St. Louis Blues orbit under head coach Jim Montgomery as a police investigation expands.
The 21-year-old Blues prospect collapsed during an outdoor Arizona State workout on August 20, and questions surrounding the session have grown far more serious.
According to family attorney Robert Carey, Mayich had spent only five days in the Phoenix area before taking part in the demanding outdoor training session.
"According to Matthew Mayich's lawyer: "Mayich was not immediately rushed to a cooling station or dunked in an ice bath when he fell down at the ASU track; he was instead left on the ground for several minutes."
That timing has drawn scrutiny because Arizona State's heat-acclimatization guidelines call for athletes to be gradually introduced to extreme conditions before taking on full workloads.
The workout lasted about an hour and reportedly featured sprints, push-ups, flutter kicks, bear crawls and exercises that required players to carry teammates.
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Players told Carey they were repeatedly shouted at and discouraged from complaining. He also alleged that access to water during the session was limited for some participants.
Questions grow around Mayich's collapse
Conditions were demanding. Temperatures had reached 89 degrees that morning, while humidity was reported at roughly 50 percent as the group trained outdoors.
Carey said Mayich became disoriented and was visibly struggling before eventually collapsing near the end of the workout. That timeline is now receiving intense attention from investigators.
Another major question surrounds the immediate medical response. Carey alleges Mayich wasn't placed into a cold-water immersion tub after going down despite university guidelines identifying rapid cooling as the preferred response for exertional heat illness.
Tempe Fire Medical Rescue arrived at 8:30 a.m., and first responders quickly alerted a nearby hospital that they were dealing with a serious heat-related emergency.
Mayich was later transferred to Barrow Neurological Institute. Carey has since delivered a devastating update, saying the defenseman's condition is irreversible and that describing him as simply being in a coma is no longer accurate.
Arizona State University Police are now conducting a formal investigation into whether wrongdoing occurred. Officers have also started contacting players who were present for interviews as they work to establish exactly what happened.
Tim Ziesel, the former Green Beret who led the workout, has pushed back through attorney Buddy Rake, maintaining that the session wasn't extreme. Carey strongly disputes that characterization.
For the Blues organization, Mayich's future on the blue line has become secondary. The focus has shifted entirely toward his condition, his family and the mounting questions surrounding that August morning.
Should Arizona State remove staff members connected to the workout while investigators examine the case?
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