Jeff Ashby Wood at age 13 in 2007. Wood collapsed and died July 30, 2009, after he was hit by a baseball while practicing with the Valley High School team in Orderville. Photo courtesy of the Wood family.

Cedar City » A sophomore at Valley High School collapsed and died after being hit in the torso with a baseball while practicing with the school's team.

Kane County sheriff Chief Deputy Tracy Glover said Jeff Wood, 15, who lived in Alton, was standing in center field behind second base at the school in Orderville on Wednesday night when he was hit in the torso, possibly the chest, and dropped to the ground.

Glover said the boy's father, Jim Wood, is the principal of the southern Utah school and was one of the emergency responders to the scene.

Glover said the town's emergency medical technicians were in a nearby training session when the call came in at 6:15 p.m. and responded in two minutes.

Resuscitation efforts had already begun when EMTs arrived, but the boy could not be revived.

"There was every opportunity to save him," said Glover. "They started CPR on him within 30 seconds."

Glover said the boy had complained of a side ache before he took to the field, but Glover did not know if that was related to the teen's death.

The boy's body was sent to the medical examiner's office in Salt Lake City for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

His grandmother, Joy Heaton, described Jeff as the oldest of six children and a "fun loving kid" who had just earned his Eagle Scout badge. He was also on the school basketball team.

"He had started a lawn

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business and loved to drive machinery," said Heaton. "He liked to help out his grandfather on his ranch during haying time."

She said Jeff was also a good friend to the elderly people in the small community of Alton. "He tried hard to do what's right and will be missed for sure," Heaton said. "It's hard to lose a grandson."

She said Jeff complained of a side ache before practice, but went anyway. "I don't know if that means anything," she said. "We'll just have to wait and see what the autopsy says."

The last reported death of a Utah high school player struck by a baseball was Ryan Nielsen, 17. Nielsen was practicing pitching for Copper Hills High School in West Jordan in August 2004 when the batter hit a line drive that struck Nielsen in the neck, rupturing his carotid artery.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), deaths in children from being struck by a baseball are rare. Between 1973 and 1995, there were an average of four deaths per year in the U.S., 41 percent of them from heart injuries caused by a ball striking them in the chest.

Children 15 and younger appear more vulnerable to blunt chest impact because their thoraxes may be more elastic and more easily compressed, according to research cited by the AAP.

mhavnes@sltrib.com