Kwasny transported by air ambulance to Winnipeg

Football player Kevin Kwasny of Winnipeg was transported by air ambulance Friday afternoon from Sherbrooke, Que. to Winnipeg where he will continue to be treated after suffering a brain hemorrhage during a football game on Sept. 10.

Kwasny, a 21-year-old defensive lineman with the Bishop’s University Gaiters, had been rushed to the hospital at halftime of the team’s Canadian Interuniversity Sport football game.

A graduate of Winnipeg’s St. Paul’s High School, Kwasny had been a patient at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Sherbrooke until being brought home to Winnipeg by air ambulance Friday where he was met by a medical team.

Information issued late Friday by Bishop’s university which was released by Kwasny’s family was that "Kevin has shown minor signs of improvement and consciousness."

The Kwasny family has asked for privacy.

During the Sept. 10 football game, there was no immediate evidence that Kwasny had suffered head trauma in that game. However, he was exhibiting signs of disorientation and had vomited while in the Gaiter’s dressing room at halftime and teammates alerted the team’s medical staff.

He had been placed in a medically-induced coma following surgery the same day he was admitted to the hospital to relieve pressure on the brain.

Kwasny is a fourth-year social sciences student at Bishop’s who is in his third year of football eligibility and had been a starter in the first two games this season on the Gaiters’ defensive line.

He had earned the Winnipeg High School Football League’s defensive player of the year award in 2007 as a member of the St. Paul’s Crusaders.

"He was an outstanding player for our team and in our league," Stacy Dainard, head coach of the St. Paul’s Crusaders who coached Kwasny, told the Free Press in an earlier interview. "Beyond football, he’s a great kid, great family and he has worked really hard to get himself in a position to have a great experience at the university level."

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca