Manny Castillo’s closest teammates yesterday relived the gut-wrenching moments of the young player’s fatal injury at a high school rugby match.
Bob Kovacevic didn’t realize Manny, his son’s close friend, was the one injured until he stood over the boy’s body, twitching and turning blue, on the playing field, he told a Brampton court.
Moments earlier on the sidelines, he had told his wife that a player was in peril after Manny was driven headfirst into the ground by an opponent.
“There was no way in the world he was ever getting up again,” said an emotional Kovacevic, who was at the game with his wife to cheer on their son.
Manny, 15, died in hospital a few days after the May 7, 2007, incident near the end of the game.
A Mississauga teen, now 18, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter in this judge-alone trial before Justice Bruce Duncan. His identity is protected because he was 15 when Crown prosecutor John Raftery says he fatally upended Manny.
