Runner Autopsies Inconclusive

Autopsies were performed Friday on two young Orange County men who collapsed after running at separate college campuses, but there were no immediate answers on what caused the deaths.

Both men died Thursday after doing light to moderate exercise for a short period of time.

Juan Pena, 24, of Garden Grove passed out as he was resting with a friend after running and walking a few laps at Cypress College. He was not a student at the school.

Brian Sweet, 19, of Costa Mesa had been running the steps at the Orange Coast College stadium with a friend when he collapsed. He was a student and member of the crew team there.

Their deaths stunned family members, who had thought of them as healthy young men, though Pena had undergone surgery to correct a congenital heart defect.

After preliminary autopsies Friday, the Orange County coroner’s office said it needed to do more testing over the next two weeks.

Orange County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Amormino said the coroner is likely to look at medical conditions such as asthma, heart problems and lung capacity to determine the causes of the deaths.

“I do not think drugs are speculated at all or otherwise [the coroner] would tell me,” he said.

The two deaths have drawn added attention because they happened on the same day in the same county and because eight football players--one NFL All-Pro, three from top-20 college programs, three high school players and an eighth-grader--have died during or after football workouts in the last seven months. Many of those deaths were linked to heat and exhaustion.

But in the Thursday cases, the men had not been running long or in severe heat.

Sweet and friend Chris Pope had been running up and down stadium steps at Orange Coast College for about 15 minutes, which they regularly did during the school year to practice for the rowing team, when Sweet collapsed, said Coach David Grant. Pope, a lifeguard, began cardiopulmonary resuscitation and called 911, Grant said. Sweet was pronounced dead at 6:24 p.m at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian in Newport Beach.

“Members of our rowing team are really in good shape,” said Orange Coast spokesman Jim Carnett. “I would not speculate that [Sweet] was exhausted. The athletes frequently do stuff on their own to stay in shape.”

‘That’s the Shock of It; He Was Fine’

When he began rowing as a sophomore at Newport Harbor High School, Sweet underwent a comprehensive cardiac checkup, said his godmother, Tobey Yoches, who acted as family spokesman Friday. A general physician thought he may have heard something unusual in Sweet’s heart during a routine physical, and sent Sweet for more testing, which turned up negative, she said.

Shortly before leaving for his workout Thursday, Sweet talked to his father about dinner plans.

“He hadn’t been sick. He had no symptoms, no hints that maybe he had problems,” Yoches said. “That’s the shock of it. He was fine. If it was his heart, it will be very surprising.”

But the coroner told the family that a pathologist could find no cause of death. More tests, including a microscopic tissue test, will be conducted over the next few weeks to determine whether the death was heat-related.

Sweet began rowing at the Newport Aquatic Center and last year at Orange Coast. He hoped to travel next year to Europe to compete in a race.

Grant said team members begin slowly and increase their skills and strength as the year passes. They regularly climb the stadium stairs, lift weights and use rowing machines.

Pena collapsed earlier in the day.

An assistant manager of a Rite-Aid in Anaheim, he regularly played basketball and coached a Pop Warner football team in Santa Ana, said friend Marcus Hughes.

On Thursday, Pena’s day off, he and Hughes, 24, met about 10:30 a.m. They would have been watching television but Pena insisted they exercise, Hughes said.

They headed to the track at nearby Cypress College. They alternately walked and jogged for 30 minutes. When they tired, they sat down, Hughes said. As they talked, Pena suddenly passed out.

He was taken to West Anaheim Medical Center, where he died at 12:13 p.m. in the emergency room.

His sister, Thelma Warnick, said that surgery at age 2 corrected a problem Pena had been born with, arteries connected the wrong way.

Pena had played football at Santa Ana Valley High School after getting special permission from his doctor, family members said.

They doubted that his early health problems contributed to his death.

‘A Tragedy Beyond Comprehension’

Frederick W. James, past president of the American Heart Assn.’s Western states affiliate and a pediatric cardiologist, has no specific knowledge of Pena’s condition.

But he said that although birth defects can be corrected, “that does not mean the patient is cured. . . . Many people can go away and think they don’t need follow-up.”

Warnick said the death has hit the family hard because her mother is receiving kidney dialysis and her father is recuperating from injuries suffered in a car crash. Another brother died 11 years of a drug overdose.

And they do not have enough money to bury Pena.

Like Pena’s family, relatives of Sweet wondered how such a young, active, seemingly healthy man could be dead.

“This is a very horrible day,” Yoches said. “It’s a tragedy beyond comprehension.”

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Staff writer Kimi Yoshino contributed to this story.