Horseplay at Party Leaves Teenager in a Coma

A 16-year-old Garden Grove boy was in a coma Sunday after horsing around at a party with a Marine who may have applied “some sort of a hold,” police said.

The incident occurred about 10 p.m. Saturday at an apartment in the 1700 block of West Sumac Lane in Anaheim, police said.

When officers arrived, they found Samuel Meek, a 10th-grader at Rancho Alamitos High School, lying unconscious in the driveway, according to Anaheim police spokesman Rick Martinez.

Meek’s friends and relatives were holding vigil Sunday night at UCI Medical Center, where a hospital official said he lay in a coma.

“When he came into the medical center he was having very shallow breaths,” said the teenager’s father, also named Samuel Meek. “They hooked him up on a respirator, and he hasn’t awakened since.”

Meek’s family and friends prayed for the boy’s recovery. “We don’t even know if he’s going to make it,” his father said.

Martinez would not release the name of the Marine, identifying him only as an 18-year-old stationed at Camp Pendleton.

“Basically we believe that the [Marine] may have been applying some sort of a hold on the 16-year-old,” he said. “It does not appear to be an intentional act where he purposely intended to harm the guy.”

Nonetheless, Martinez said, the incident has not been officially ruled an accident.

“Once the investigation is over,” he said, “we will send the information to the D.A.’s office to make the determination as to whether a law was violated. It may not have been an intentional act, but it may not have been an accident either. We will leave it to the legal experts to say.”

As of late Sunday, Martinez said, no arrests had been made.