The worst injury so far early in Hawaii’s prep sports school year ended Alan Mohika’s football season Friday night at a time of heightened focus on concussions among young student-athletes — from quarterbacks to cheerleaders.

"I’m done for this season," Mohika said Monday from the neurology unit at the Queen’s Medical Center. "It might get worse if I play. I wish I could play. I love being on the field with my friends, the love for them and being with them on the sidelines."

Mohika, a 17-year-old senior quarterback and defensive back for Damien Memorial School, suffered his second concussion in a year Friday when he was hit by a safety while throwing a third-quarter touchdown pass in a 27-7 preseason loss to Moanalua High School.

After passing out on the sideline, where bystanders performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation, the 5-foot-7-inch, 155-pound Mohika was taken to Queen’s, suffering from a brain hemorrhage.

Mohika was put on life support and initially was transferred to the intensive care unit, said Dr. Caesar Ursic, Queen’s medical director for trauma services.

"It was more than a concussion," Ursic said. "It goes beyond a concussion. We have had patients who have died from these kind of head injuries."

Mohika hopes to resume his catcher duties on Damien’s baseball team and pursue a college baseball career.

But it will be up to Mohika’s doctors to determine whether he will be able to play baseball, said Damien athletic director Wally Aina.

"It’s all based on what the doctor says," Aina said. "In this case it’s so catastrophic. We’re going to have to look at what’s best for the boy. He is our catcher — a very good catcher, by the way. I know this boy wants to come back, but it’s premature at this point. The decision has to be made for this boy’s safety and for his health and longevity."

While Damien is in the private school Interscholastic League of Honolulu, state Department of Education officials have implemented a concussion management program for all 43 public high schools and are preparing for an Oct. 6 coaches clinic on concussions.

Ross Oshiro, the department’s coordinator for athletic trainers, called Mohika’s concussion "probably the most significant injury" so far this year.

The play call in the Damien huddle was for "trips right monarch," said Mohika’s best friend, senior Rusty Kauahikaua, who caught six passes for 112 yards Friday night.

The play, Kauahikaua said, "was a guaranteed touchdown."

Mohika said he remembers nothing of the play or of the game. He certainly doesn’t remember being knocked face-down after throwing the touchdown pass.

Mohika’s last memory was getting ready for the game.

"I remember warming up my arm," he said, "but I don’t remember the game."

Mohika will undergo speech and physical therapy and does not know when he will be discharged from Queen’s, said his mother, Nohea.

"His mind is not like this," she said, snapping her fingers repeatedly, "but it’s getting better."

Mohika also suffered a less severe concussion during a football scrimmage last year against Kailua High School, Nohea Mohika said.

She and her husband, Floyd, have an older son, David, 22, who suffered a concussion while playing catcher for Castle High School in Kaneohe, where the Mohikas live, Nohea Mohika said.

Their youngest son, Ryan, a ninth-grader who plays running back and linebacker on Castle’s junior varsity team, suffered a concussion during practice on Aug. 1.

But Mohika said she and her husband will allow the younger boys to keep playing competitive contact sports.

"They love it," she said. "My boys are athletes."

After he collapsed Friday, Alan Mohika’s parents rushed from the bleachers, and Floyd Mohika clung to his son.

Mohika wept Monday as he remembered clawing to remove his son’s helmet and jersey.

"He told me that he loved me, and I was telling him, ‘Son, just stay with me,’" he said. "I was asking for someone to call 911, and I just held him and he slipped out of my hands and I put him down on the ground."

An off-duty nurse ran from the Damien stands as a doctor provided by Moana­lua High came across the field to treat the teenager, Nohea Mohika said.

"It was very horrific," she said. "At one point he stopped breathing, and I went hysterical trying to get help, trying to get the ambulance, 911, get a doctor to come help my son. It was the most scariest moment in my life."

Neither Damien nor state public schools require ambulances to be present at football games.

But Ursic said the quick response of Honolulu’s paramedic system makes ambulances standing by unnecessary.

"I just don’t think having an ambulance sitting there on the field is really that necessary," Ursic said. "They can be pretty much anywhere on the island within minutes. It doesn’t make sense to me to have an ambulance parked on every football field." 

Ursic does support the public-school efforts to better identify head trauma among student-athletes.

Children are "very vulnerable to concussions," Ursic said. "Until recently many were going undiagnosed and unrecognized by school officials, coaches and even parents."

Sports-related concussions are hardly restricted to the football field, Ursic said.

"It’s water polo, soccer, pretty much any sport you can imagine," he said. "Even girls sports have the same rates of concussion as the boys do."

The Mohikas are now focused on Alan’s therapy while cheering for their youngest boy at Castle High.

Floyd Mohika, a maintenance worker at a public housing project, and Nohea Mohika, who works at a bank, have health coverage, but they don’t know what their out-of-pocket costs will be for their son’s medical care and subsequent therapy.

But they are certain their younger boys will keep on playing.

Although Nohea Mohika was "devastated" by her son’s injury — "I thought we could have lost him that night," she said — the Mohikas plan to keep watching him and his younger brother on the field.

"You can’t stop them from playing," Floyd said. "They love the game."

VIDEO: Damien QB talks about injury and future