(RepublicanPeak.com)- This week, the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky reached a $14.1 million settlement with the family of Grant Brace, the wrestler who died from heat stroke in 2020, CNN reported on Tuesday.
The Brace family sued the university claiming that Grant died after a “punishment practice” in which the wrestling coaches ignored his “deteriorating medical condition,” according to the lawsuit.
The family maintained that despite Grant repeatedly begging for water, the coaches refused to permit anyone to help and sent him out of the wrestling facility alone. Grant was later found dead with his hands clutching grass and dirt after desperately searching for “assistance and water,” the lawsuit said.
Grant Brace was 20 years old at the time.
This week, Jamie Moncus, the family’s attorney, publicly released surveillance footage to ABC News’s “Good Morning America,” showing Grant pulling on the locked door to the wrestling facility. About an hour later, he was found 300 yards away, collapsed near a non-working water fountain.
Despite the University of the Cumberlands believing it could defend against the claims brought by the Brace family, the school’s chancellor said in a statement this week that the school decided to settle the case out of respect for the family’s loss.
In a press statement, University of the Cumberlands Chancellor Jerry Jackson described Grant Brace as a “talented” and well-liked young man “with a bright future ahead of him” and the school “continues to mourn” the “untimely loss.”
Jackson added that the University hopes that the early settlement of the case will provide “a measure of peace and healing” to Grant’s family.
As part of the settlement, the university will implement the B.R.A.C.E Protocol, a program designed to educate both coaches and athletes on exertional heat strokes to prevent future tragedies like the death of Grant Brace.
