Football

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Seau 911 caller horrified, nearly hysterical

By: Bernie Wilson

Posted: 05/5/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

SAN DIEGO -- A 911 call from the home of Junior Seau released Friday captures the voice of a woman who is horrified to find the former NFL linebacker in a spare bedroom with a gunshot wound to the chest.

"My God, my boyfriend shot himself! Oh my God!" the eight-minute call begins.

The woman, who identifies herself as Megan, said she was returning to the home Wednesday morning from a one-hour visit to the gym.

Oceanside police released the recording one day after the San Diego County medical examiner's office ruled the death a suicide. The family plans to donate Seau's brain for research into football-related injuries.

The caller is nearly hysterical and breathing heavily during much of the call as emergency workers guide her through life-saving measures that failed.

"Where is the gun?" the dispatcher asks.

"It's next to him in the bed," she answers.

"What is your boyfriend's name?"

"Junior Seau," she says.

The dispatcher asks where he was shot.

"I can't tell, ma'am. It looks like in the heart," she said.

She told the dispatcher that he did not have a pulse and that his chest was not moving.

"I just came home from the gym, and he's in our spare bedroom, and he shot himself, and it looks like he shot himself in the chest," she says after the dispatcher transferred the call to the fire department.

Nearly five minutes into the call, she goes to the door to allow rescue workers in. She explains again what happened and then begins to sob.

The woman's last name is unintelligible on the recording. Lt. Leonard Mata, a spokesman for Oceanside police, said police aren't releasing the woman's name.

Seau played for his hometown Chargers for 13 seasons and was also a star at Southern California. There's been no medical evidence that brain injuries from football may have played a role in his death.

San Diego Chargers chaplain Shawn Mitchell said Friday he didn't know where the brain will be sent.

-- The Associated Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition May 5, 2012 C9

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