Video

Thousands show up at Lely High School to honor the life of Ereck Plancher Watch »

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

RELATED STORIES

• Concerns raised over Plancher’s final practice
• Report: UCF players tell of intense workout, coach cursing before Plancher's death
• 3,000 celebrate Plancher’s life
• Plancher’s legacy as No. 5 will live on at Lely
• A tribute to Lely’s No. 5: Ereck Plancher, great player, better person
• UCF offers to pay funeral, medical expenses for Plancher; service Saturday
• Investigation finds Plancher's UCF workout complied with NCAA rules
• Former Lely High football player Plancher dies at UCF after conditioning drill

More Latest Stories

• Running now part of a marriage pact
• Nail biters feature of Marco baseball games
• Marco T-Ball a blast for youngsters, parents

Share and Enjoy [?]

Funeral services for former Lely High School football star Ereck Plancher required a lot of up-to-the-minute planning Saturday -- not only to fit a crowd of mourners that grew to roughly 3,000, but to provide medical help to deal with heavy emotions, rising temperatures and fainting.

It was a standing-room-only crowd in the auditorium, where Master Sgt. Santiago Laureano of the Junior ROTC estimated there were about 500 persons, with another 500 in the cafeteria.

Once the tables in the cafeteria filled up, there were spillover crowds seated in benches and standing in the hallways, listening to the service through a PA system and TV monitors. As more arrived, classrooms with TVs were opened up one-by-one, until seven were filled. Laureano estimated about 3,000 attended, not the 2,000 that were expected.

The parking lot was packed and cars circled, scouting around for spots, weaving around an ambulance, fire truck and buses that brought Plancher’s University of Central Florida team members. A line of mourners snaked out the school’s doors even after services had begun, with many waiting to sign Plancher’s remembrance book.

Inside, the emotions -- and temperatures -- in the packed rooms ran high and Collier County Emergency Medical Services personnel stood by as East Naples firefighters and Collier County sheriff’s Cpl. Jeff Boyd, the youth relations deputy assigned to the school, and other deputies walked the hallways, checking the auditorium, cafeteria and classrooms to make sure mourners who were crying loudly and swooning didn’t need medical help.

“We had a couple of people go down,” Greg Speers, East Naples Fire Department’s community relations officer, said midway through services, adding that both were men, but only one was taken to a hospital. “He hadn’t had anything to eat. We just wanted to err on the side of caution.”

But as the service went on, and the air conditioning struggled to keep rooms cool, one teen, overcome by emotion, was carried out by a friend, seated in the much-cooler hallway, and then taken to a more private classroom.

A woman in her late 40s fainted was given medical help after emergency services personnel weren’t initially able to revive her.

Speers praised Lely High School officials for planning ahead for such a large crowd.

“When they’re standing around and the emotions run high, it starts to get warm and that can lead to fainting problems,” Speers said. “But they opened up several more rooms that were air-conditioned. If it weren’t for that, we’d probably have more problems.”