Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
Vu Nguyen, who is 34, suffered cardiac arrest while playing in a weekend soccer game in Santa Monica. The Daily Breeze staff story says that Nguyen is hospitalized in a coma after suffering "irreversible brain damage" and is not expected to survive. He has a wife of six months.
Nguyen kicked two goals while playing a soccer game with friends Sunday in a Santa Monica park, and collapsed as he ran with his arms outstretched like an airplane down the field...Born in Saigon, Vietnam, on Feb. 20, 1975, Nguyen was 2 months old when his father, attack pilot Chuyen Nguyen, and mother, Ngoc Thuy Nguyen, were among the first refugees to escape and come to the United States.
Raised in Garden Grove, Nguyen decided early on he wanted to be a reporter. An editor at Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove, he went to work as a reporter for the Seattle Times, Orange County Register, Nguoi Viet 2 in Westminster, and The Associated Press in Springfield, Ill.
The Daily Breeze hired him in August to cover South Bay school districts. His most recent stories have chronicled the financial struggles of school districts dealing with significant cuts in funding. He also enjoyed weekly visits to campuses throughout the area to detail classroom activities for the Breeze's Monday education page.
"Our newsroom is deeply saddened about what has happened to Vu," Daily Breeze editor Phillip Sanfield said.
The Breeze story explains that his byline was Nguyen Huy Vu, which put his last name first "in the traditional Vietnamese style as a way to honor his family." Nguyen's first paid byline was at the OC Weekly. "We are all incredibly saddened by the loss of our friend and colleague," says the Weekly's R. Scott Moxley.