A New England Patriots season ticket holder died Sunday night after he was reportedly punched three times by a Miami Dolphins fan at the Patriots-Dolphins game at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Massachusetts.
Dale Mooney, 53, of Newmarket, New Hampshire, a married father of two children, had attended the game with three friends; they told Mooney’s wife later that they were taunted in the 300-tier section during the game by other fans, WCVB reported.
Joseph Kilmartin, who witnessed the incident, said of Mooney, “He basically grabbed another fan. They started tussling around for a few minutes. At one point, another Dolphins fan walked over. He punched him three times, and the man just went out. It was pretty hard to watch.”
“It was really one punch that I saw and the victim got punched really hard on the side of the head, and went down. He’s a bigger guy but he just crumbled,” a witness told NBC Boston. “First responders got there and they instantly start doing compressions, they had to lay him out in the aisle between the seats. They were doing compressions by my estimation for easily 10 minutes. It was pretty heartbreaking and the game was still going on so the general public clearly knew what was going on in our section so the game was going on, people are cheering for the Patriots comeback, and this poor guy has passed away before our eyes. It was pretty brutal to watch.”
Mooney was transported to the Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, where he was pronounced dead.
“I just feel numb; I can’t even believe this is for real,” Mooney’s wife Lisa said. “I don’t understand why people have to go to that extreme. Why can’t it just be fun? That’s all it’s supposed to be, just a fun family event.” Mooney said she didn’t know of any medical condition her husband had that would precipitate a blackout, adding that he “has the patience of a saint. … I don’t know what happened … it takes a lot to get him mad.”
“I would use this terrible situation as a reminder that this is just a game and people are just going to enjoy themselves and cheer on their team but everyone should be able to attend a game and feel safe in their environment,” a fan at the game commented.
The Norfolk County District Attorney’s Office stated that “the matter remains under active investigation.” A spokesman for the state police sad they were investigating “the facts and circumstances of the man’s death, including the sequence of events prior to the medical incident.”