An otherwise healthy 30-year-old baseball coach in New Jersey has died of the coronavirus, according to a report.
District Superintendent Michael Romagnino released a letter on Monday to parents noting that Ben Luderer, a teacher and varsity baseball coach at Cliffside Park school #6, passed away this week.
Luderer took ill last week, and by March 27 was taken to a local hospital where he soon went on oxygen, his family told BuzzFeed.
The family added that Luderer was soon sent home but began spiraling down. By Sunday, he was reportedly unable to move in bed.
“I went back to see what I could do. I tried as much as I could,” his wife, Brandy, added. “He was sweating through his clothes. He was scared.”
By 6 AM on Monday, Luderer had died in his bed at home.
“He touched so many lives,” Brandy Luderer said. “Whether it be a co-worker or an administrator or a player or a student, he always went out of his way to help people. He was a stand-up guy, a stand-up man.”
“Ben is a gift that was given to us that we were happy and privileged to have had for 30 years,” his father, Bill, told WABC TV.
Bill said his son was “a wonderful person and connected with everybody that he knew.”
Luderer helped make baseball history in New Jersey as part of the number one-ranked 2008 Don Bosco Prep team.
“It’s a shocking loss,” the legendary team’s head coach, Greg Butler, told the NJ.com. “Even the invincible aren’t invincible.”
Cliffside Park athletic director David Porfido said he broke down after hearing the school had lost the “irreplaceable” Luderer. “When I told the kids, there was nothing but silence,” concluded.
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