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Dad seeking change after son's football injury

Pushing for more medical resources at junior football games.

LUZERNE COUNTY, Pa. — 10 year old AJ Phelps was shy in front of our cameras when we met with him and his family in Plymouth to talk about his football injury.

It happened during his game over the weekend.

"AJ was being blocked by the wide receiver. He managed to break that block and he got to the running back. He went to make the tackle," explained his father Bobby Phelps.

He said the tackle was successful, but "AJ didn't get back up."

Because of pain in his stomach that turned out to be a severe spleen injury.

Phelps says there was no medical team on site, so his family took him to the hospital.

AJ spent 2 days in the ICU in Danville and is now recovering at home. 

"And it's going to be a lot of safety precautions. Like he's not allowed to go to school for six weeks. And when he does return to school, he's still on a 14 week light restriction or light activity restriction," explained his dad.

AJ and his family say this isn't the end of him and his brothers playing football.  The lessons he learns on the field and his brotherhood with his teammates are too important to let go. 

"Certainly, he's gonna play sports. He's looking forward to try out for a quarterback next year. That's what he told us. I don't push anything on my kids. But I don't the term away from doing stuff. That's that's normal American stuff," added Phelps.

But they would like to make changes to the rules.

"Have ambulance on site. I know that I know it costs a lot of money to have an ambulance at game. I don't expect every youth organization to come up with that money. I don't expect the parents to come up with that money. But maybe we can have fundraisers specifically for that. Maybe our local governments can step in and help out with some grants or something like that," he explained. 

Right now, AJ's father says having an ambulance on site for these games is not a requirement, only someone with medical experience. He's working with league officials to propose changes to local lawmakers to make it a rule to have an ambulance here for future games.

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