JauMarcus McFarland had a heart for football. With a towering stature — 6-foot-2, just shy of 300 pounds — he was “hungry” to improve himself in both the sport and in his mind, according to Michael Carson, his coach at Champion Prep Academy.
McFarland had started attending the metro Atlanta school in early August, with the hopes of improving his ACT score and applying to a college program by December, Carson said. And, though just 19 years old, McFarland “really understood what his purpose in the program was.”
“He was a man of conviction,” Carson said. “He was very respectful. Very humble.”
It’s devastating, Carson said, that he won’t ever see McFarland fulfill that purpose. The teen was killed when an elevator collapsed on him Tuesday, pinning him between two floors of a northeast Atlanta apartment complex.
“We are at a loss and his family in Missouri is utterly devastated,” family friends said in a GoFundMe account following the teenager’s death.
McFarland and several of his teammates were inside an elevator at the 444 Highland Avenue apartment complex when it malfunctioned about 3 p.m. Tuesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. The others made it out, but McFarland became trapped.
A series of panicked 911 calls released by the Atlanta Police Department paint the chaotic and horrifying scene in the moments leading up to McFarland’s death. At least six witnesses called and reported that the teen was trapped between the second and third floors.
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SOURCE: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Asia Simone Burns
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