Revealed: The little-known health condition that cost a footy player his life aged just 20

A young footy star lost his life after returning to play the game too soon after suffering concussion, his mother has revealed.

Antonio Lo Iacono was just 20 years old when he died from a head injury suffered during a match in country South Australia, sending shockwaves through the sport.

His family were left searching for answers given the sudden nature of his passing. Lo Iacono was fit and healthy, with no underlying health issues. 

‘It didn’t make sense to me that a 20-year-old, fit, young man dies,’ his mother Wendy Smith told the Sydney Morning Herald.

‘That shouldn’t happen on a footy field.’

It has since emerged that Lo Iacono was the victim of ‘second impact syndrome’, which occurs when somebody who hasn’t fully recovered from a head injury suffers a second one, causing the brain to catastrophically swell.

People who suffer second impact syndrome can lose their life just days or weeks after the first impact.

Lo Iacono, a Swans tragic from Sydney, suffered both head impacts within the same game of football. The first came in the opening quarter when a heavy hit left him grounded, before a second innocuous hit occurred in the third quarter.

His family have been searching for answers following his unexpected death

That second impact left him unconscious and instantly brain-dead.

He had also suffered concussion during a pre-season trial match that was held a month before his death.

According to Dr Adrian Cohen, who specialises in traumatic brain injuries, Lo Iacono is one of 21 young athletes who have died from second impact syndrome in the past 18 years.

Yet the syndrome has not been identified as the official cause of death, and Dr Cohen says that will only happen when experts dig deeper.

‘You only find that if you go further than just doing an external scan,’ Cohen said. ‘If you don’t look, you don’t find.

‘My recommendation would be any time you get what is always a tragic death on a sporting field, or where there has been trauma associated with the death, that instead of just looking at the heart, the spine and for a bleed around the brain, you actually examine the tissue for second impact syndrome.’ 

Clinical professor and retired neurosurgeon Michael Besser said the disease is not visible in an autopsy if experts do not know what they are looking for. 

‘People just don’t know about it,’ Besser said. ‘If they come to autopsy, there’s unfortunately little to show.’ 

Lo Iacono was killed by ‘second impact syndrome’ and experts are trying to raise awareness

Out of the immense tragedy comes a silver lining: the family were told that because Antonio was an organ donor, he will save two lives, including that of a baby. 

‘Words can’t describe the pain we all feel, you’re loved by so many. You will always be in my heart and I’ll talk to you everyday,’ Lo Iacono’s brother Jack wrote on social media after the family tragedy.

‘Your aura was so special and would put a smile on anyone’s face around him. You are the most caring, thoughtful person I’ve come across and always looked out for me.

‘I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done and helped me through you’re my guidance and always will be. Everything I do from this day forward is for you; I love you so, so much ‘Tones’.’