Were it not for an act of heroism, Indiana football could very well be mourning the loss of one of its own instead of praying for a full recovery.
Isaac Griffith had been on spring break in Florida the past few days with friends, including teammates Nick Stoner and Ty Smith, when the wide receiver got caught up in a rip current. One of the friends, Mitch McCune, noticed Griffith was in serious distress -- McCune was also caught up in the rip tide -- and went to his aid, ultimately getting the player to shore. At that point, McCune performed CPR on Griffith until emergency medical personnel arrived at the scene.
McCune said his friend was non-responsive when he was pulled out of the water. The Indiana Daily Student wrote that Griffith “had a pulse but was unconscious” and that "[h]is breathing was reportedly short and sporadic.”
“Me and Isaac got pulled farther out than everyone else, so we were having trouble,” McCune told the Associated Press in a telephone interview. “He was drowning and I grabbed him and got him to shore. It was tough.”
The last update on Griffith was that he was in a critical but stable condition in a medically-induced coma in the ICU at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. The good news is that a CAT scan came back normal.
According to an incident report from the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office, all four of the young men -- Griffith, McCune, Stoner and Smith -- had consumed alcohol prior to the incident, which was reported at 7:31 p.m. ET Monday. McCune denied that aspect of the report, telling the AP, “I don’t know how that started.”
Griffith was a three-star member of the Hoosiers’ 2013 recruiting class coming out of high school in Fort Wayne., Ind. He took a redshirt his true freshman season.