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6-year-old collapses, dies as baseball team prepares for photos

The team had snapped all the individual pictures when the coach tried to round up all 12 players for the team shot.

CHICKAMAUGA, Ga. — A North Georgia family and a baseball ball team are mourning the death of a 6-year-old boy.

The Lane Funeral Home and Crematory confirmed to 11Alive that Brantley Neal Chandler died Thursday, March 28. 

Little Brantley collapsed on the baseball field. He was there taking team photos. 

The first-grader was born with a rare congenital heart defect known as a Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, and had three open-heart surgeries by the time he was 2, his mother told NBC.

Credit: Courtesy of Lane Funeral Home and Crematory
Brantley Neal Chandler

He was with his teammates Thursday night for team photos. After they'd taken their individual photos, their coach, Jamie Chapman, tried to round up all the players for a team picture.

“So I'm counting them out, and I said, `Man we only have 11. Who am I missing? Where's B (Brantley)?' I look up and there he was, just running the bases,” Chapman recalled. “That was one of my last memories of him.” 

As the photographer lined up the players for the team photo, Brantley grabbed his back and fell forward, the coach said. 

An ambulance rushed him to a children's hospital in nearby Chattanooga, Tennessee, but he could not be revived. 

Doctors said they don't believe playing baseball played a role in the heart attack, NBC reported.

“Competitive sports are not recommended, but baseball at 5 or 6 years old wouldn't qualify as an overly vigorous sport that Brantley shouldn't have been allowed to play,” said Dr. Achiau Ludomirsky, pediatric cardiologist at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone.

"When he was not playing baseball, Brantley could be found enjoying what the outdoors had to offer," the funeral home said on its tribute page for Brantley. "He loved Hunting, fishing, spending time with his hunting dog “Boss”, riding four wheelers, and playing in the mud getting his boots dirty!"

The first-grader attended Chickamauga Elementary School in Chickamauga, 

"Brantley could ask more questions than anyone in a minute, he loved tractors and heavy equipment, and he attended Faith Baptist Church in Ringgold," the obituary said. " He will be truly missed by his family and all of the many people he touched."

Brantley leaves behind his parents, step-parents, two sisters, a brother, many more relatives and his fellow teammates.

His funeral was held Sunday.

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