http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/14122269.htm
Timberview High School athlete dies days after surgery
TRYSTAN ROBERT YANCY | 1988 - 2006
By CHARLES POLANSKY
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
Editor's note: The original version of this report contained incorrect information about the hospital in which Trystan Yancy died.
ARLINGTON -- Not long after Jim Yancy's 17-year-old son, Trystan, died in his arms, he made his way back to the hospital waiting room. Upon entering, he looked up and saw "50 or 60 kids" standing there.
"I asked, 'How many people are here for Trystan?'" Yancy said Thursday. "They all raised their hands. That's his legacy."
Trystan Yancy, a junior at Timberview High School, died Tuesday afternoon of complications from reconstructive knee surgery five days earlier. Trystan died of pulmonary embolism, which is the sudden blockage of an artery in the lung.
In every sense, Trystan was a big man on the Mansfield school district campus. He stood 6-foot-3 and weighed 235 pounds. He played offensive guard for Timberview's football team and threw the discus for the track and field team.
He was respected by his classmates, teammates, teachers and coaches.
A year ago, Trystan had surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his knee. He played the entire 2005 season in excruciating pain, which he thought was normal. After the season, though, doctors re-examined his knee and found that one of his ligaments had detached from the bone and reattached in the wrong place. That led to the reconstructive surgery last week.
The day he died, Trystan was headed back to the doctor to have the stitches removed. As he made his way into the garage on his crutches, Trystan felt something happening. Something very wrong.
"He said, 'Dad, I'm going down,'" Jim Yancy said. "He knew what was happening and I said, 'I love you, son.'"
Trystan wasn't breathing. Yancy lay his son down in the garage and began administering CPR. He screamed for help. And then Jim could hear gurgling in Trystan's lungs. A few moments later, Trystan was dead.
"I'm just devastated," Jim said. "He touched so many lives, so many people. He was so loved in life.
"He was one of the brightest things in my life."
Trystan was president of Timberview's chapter of Fellowship of Christian Athletes, which explains his close relationship with Robert Owens, Timberview's co-defensive coordinator and head baseball coach.
"It's been the two worst days of my life," Owens said. "He was a great kid. We lost an absolute angel. He was a real big kid, big and strong and aggressive. But he was also one of the most giving kids that I've ever known."
Owens said he felt like he'd lost his own son.
Trystan and his sister Skylar Yancy, a sophomore at the University of Texas at Arlington, were closer than most siblings. Skylar said the two were best friends.
"We could tell each other anything," she said. "It was always Skylar and Trystan. When we were growing up, it was like it was us against the world. We were a unit all the way from when we were born right up until I left for college."
The last time Skylar Yancy, a theater major, saw her younger brother was last weekend when he attended her latest play, Five Women Wearing the Same Dress.
She hasn't developed the pictures taken of her and Trystan that night, but when she does, she said, she'll always remember the last time she spoke with him and the last time she touched him.
Trystan is also survived by his mother, Sharon Nardy; sisters Jamie Yancy and Kalyca Nardy; and brother, Spydel Nardy.
FUNERAL
Saturday at 2 p.m. at Walnut Ridge Baptist Church, 2351 Country Club Drive in Mansfield. Visitation: 6 to 9 p.m. today at Walnut Ridge Baptist Church.
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