WAGONER, Oklahoma -
It's been agonizing wait for a Wagoner mother. Her 14-year-old son collapsed and died at wrestling practice last December and no one knows why.
The medical examiner's office said it would take two weeks. Two weeks has turned into two months and the family's still waiting for answers.
"He was just a special person. I miss him so much," his mother, Wyletta Penney Pettit said.
It never seems fair when a mother buries a child.
Ty'Darius Penney had a promising future.
"I see him making it to the NFL or making it to the leagues," said his uncle, Ryan Brown.
Dreams cut short.
The Wagoner School District said Ty'Darius was doing a final jog around the wrestling mat when he collapsed and died.
"Just for him to drop like that - I just don't understand. God just reached down and grabbed him and took him home and I…" his mother said.
She's at a loss and worries the medical examiner is, too, because after two months, she's still asking the same question: What caused Ty'Darius to collapse and die?
And each time, for the last two months, the medical examiner's office has the same answer: "It's still pending."
"That's a long time. That's a long time for me to be waiting. Give me something, you know? I just want to know something," Penney Pettit said.
Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Eric Pfeifer says even without a backlog, the waiting game is not unusual.
He said, "I share the mother's frustration. With only six forensic pathologists in the whole state, the average autopsy turnaround time for this agency is five months, not two."
Pfeifer says in complicated cases like this one, blood and tissue tests are performed multiple times. The process can take up to six months before families learn a cause of death.
"That's my biggest fear: not knowing what happened," Ty'Darius's mother said.
She wants other mothers to know how just how much fighting it takes to finally find some peace.
Wyletta Penney Pettit is still waiting for autopsy results after the mysterious death of her son after a wrestling practice two months ago.
