BURBANK — A small group of parents gathered at the entrance of John Muir Middle School in the midday rain on Friday and stared at a makeshift memorial for 11-year-old Austin Cook.
Austin, a sixth-grader at John Muir Middle School, died Thursday at about 2 p.m. after collapsing during a midmorning run in his physical education class.
Austin collapsed at about 10:30 a.m. when the class was running laps. He was taken to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center, where doctors tried to revive him.
The cause of death had not been confirmed as of press time, but a heart problem is suspected, district officials said.
“I just keep thinking, like, imagining, if it was one of my kids,” said Allison Gheyvandian, the mother of Lisa Dinolfo, 13, one of Austin’s friends and classmates.
Lisa saw Austin in what would be the last hours of his life Thursday when he fell ill during class.
“All of a sudden he just collapsed,” Lisa said. “This whole day I was crying. It’s really hard.”
Lisa said she was surprised when Austin complained of chest pains during his run. He was on the Burbank Vikings youth football team and was fond of physical activity.
Students were released from class at the regularly scheduled hour Thursday, and Burbank Unified School District administrators released a notice about Austin’s death at about 5 p.m.
On Friday morning, students were directed to go to their first-period classes instead of their homerooms so that the district’s crisis team — comprising psychologists, counselors and administrators — could speak with sixth-grade classes immediately.
Counselors from other middle schools in the district were deployed to Muir Middle School as well as counselors from the Family Service Agency of Burbank.
“We have also set aside the library for teachers to send students to meet individually with the counselors and small groups of friends,” said Jan Britz, assistant superintendent of instructional services.
The library was set up as a safe place for students to come to grieve, cry and express any feelings they had regarding Austin’s death.
Britz and Deputy Supt. Joel Shapiro were on campus Friday morning providing extra support in the main office and around campus.
“Our counselors are trying to deal with this,” Britz said. “They’re the experts.”
