Brodie Sawatsky was supposed to shovel Neil Godbout's driveway on Friday, the cost of losing a bet on a Canucks game, but instead the 12-year-old fell in the snow at school and never got up again.
"As it stands now, he may as well have been struck by a bolt of lightning - he was a healthy, active kid," said Godbout, a family friend and spokesperson for the boy's loved ones.
The family has been told that Sawatsky was playing football outside during recess at Foothills elementary school when he dove for a ball.
According to information released to the family by the coroner on Monday, there was some kind of contact between Sawatsky and another student.
"He was conscious, but he couldn't catch his breath," said Godbout.
"He passed away in the hospital. They were still working to revive him in the hospital after they wheeled him in and Chantelle (his mother) was there for that."
An autopsy was scheduled for today at University Hospital. However it has been postponed and is now set to take place at New Westminister's Royal Columbian Hospital.
Godbout said the family is grief-stricken, but anxious to understand why this happened.
"Nothing more than the usual (was the matter with him)," said Godbout.
"This time of year you get the sniffles. He missed a day or two of school a little while ago feeling under the weather, but nothing that would trigger a thought of anything serious. He was in my house Wednesday. We watched the Canucks game, we had a bite to eat, he lost a bet and was supposed to shovel my driveway for the month of December. To see him Friday afternoon like I did was devastating, right out of my worst nightmare."
The boy and his mom moved to Prince George from the Lower Mainland during the summer in order to be closer to Chantelle's family in Quesnel. His father and older sister still live on the south coast.
"He was new to the school but I know he had also formed some close bonds with his new classmates so it must have been pretty tough," Godbout said.
He recalled a suicide of a classmate at about that age in his own background.
"It is so far outside the realm of imagination, for someone 12 coming on to 13 to be active one second, then suddenly be gone. It is hard to grasp," he said.
The school district had a critical incident response team at the school on Friday in the immediate aftermath.
They were also available at the school during the weekend, and that service will go on as long as it is necessary, said education trustee Lyn Hall.
Sawatsky was less than a month from his 13th birthday.
