What no one seemed to notice was that the play ended with Rohan’s helmeted skull crashing to the ground. He gripped a teammate’s hand to rise, then walked slowly to the sideline, weaker by the step.

On the bench, he told a teammate, “I have a headache.”

He went limp. Then he collapsed.

As he lay unconscious on his back, his eyes rolled back and his mouth foaming, no one knew the exact nature of Rohan’s condition. There was confusion among the staff, and it wasn’t until he reached an emergency room more than a half-hour later that he was diagnosed with an acute subdural hematoma, a leading cause of death among high school and college football players with traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, according to a 10-year study published in 2017 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In the following months, as the consequences of Rohan’s catastrophic brain damage became alarmingly clear, his family’s grief gave rise to concerns about what might have been done to prevent or mitigate such a tragedy. At the same time, questions emerged about a football program in which Sharon players were dangerously overmatched and lacked the best safety precautions, foremost among them a full-time athletic trainer — shortcomings noted by their own head coach.

“No family should go through something like this,” Rohan’s mother, Deepika Talukdar, said at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, where more than five months later he remains largely immobile, non-verbal, and dependent on a feeding tube. “It’s torture.”

Rohan’s crisis serves as a powerful reminder to schools that vigilance to the smallest details in protecting student-athletes and preparing for medical emergencies can make a crucial difference in safety, survival, and, in Rohan’s case, the quality of his remaining life.

A Globe review found that if there were a checklist of the best practices for injury prevention and emergency preparedness in football, Sharon High School would have left several boxes unchecked.

With no full-time trainer to monitor student-athletes throughout the season, despite the coach’s requests, the school instead relied on per-diem trainers who generally appeared only on game days.

The athletic director — the school’s third in three years — had no experience as a school athletic director and was hired to double as an assistant principal, no small challenge for a school of Sharon’s size. With an enrollment of 1,161, Sharon fields 50 boys’ and girls’ teams, including 30 varsity teams in 19 sports, according to its booster club, and those teams served 882 participants in 2023-24, according to the most recent data from the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association.

Rohan Shukla placed his hand on a football signed by his Sharon High School teammates.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Get-well messages hang on the wall in Rohan Shukla's room at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

While many schools, including some of Sharon’s regular opponents, prepare for medical crises by posting ambulances at varsity football games, Sharon does not, which can make a critical difference when a student such as Rohan suffers a life-threatening brain bleed.

Rohan suffered a football concussion four weeks before Thanksgiving but was permitted to return for the holiday game without the school requiring him to submit the state-mandated medical clearance form that his parents received from his physician. His parents said they also are not aware of the school gauging Rohan’s readiness through a cognitive assessment required for students who have suffered concussions. Sharon school officials have refused to publicly address the apparent safety lapses.

Rohan may have been especially vulnerable to a recurring brain injury on Thanksgiving because of an additional oversight. In Sharon’s last contact practice before the holiday game, he was involved in a helmet-to-helmet collision that went unnoticed by the staff. His coaches didn’t learn about it from other players until more than a week later, as he was clinging to life. No one evaluated him at the time because no athletic trainer was monitoring the practice, none of the coaches spotted the collision, and Rohan never mentioned it to his coaches or family. His parents don’t know why because Rohan can no longer remember the moment.

Troubling, too, was the pounding that Rohan and his Sharon teammates faced as they played an extremely punishing schedule. Instead of lining up comparably skilled opponents, the school pitted their lowly ranked team against foes that made head protection for Rohan and his teammates even more vital. Five of their opponents qualified for postseason tournaments, including King Philip, which advanced to the Division 2 Super Bowl.

Overpowered week after week, Sharon went winless in 11 games, outscored by an average of nearly 40 points. Rohan and five teammates suffered documented concussions. In all, 14 Sharon players missed multiple games because of injuries.

“It was noncompetitive and unsafe,” Sharon head coach Ben Shuffain said.

Another problem: The protective helmet cover that Rohan wore on Thanksgiving — a product the school recommended that parents buy for extra safety — lacked protection in the very spot where Rohan’s head hit the ground, Shuffain said.

Sharon school officials have refused to say if they have reviewed the circumstances surrounding Rohan’s injury or learned anything from his life-shattering misfortune. Shuffain said he was interviewed as part of an investigation but has not been informed of any findings.

Superintendent Peter Botelho declined multiple requests to address issues raised in this report. Athletic director Michael Vitelli said he was barred from speaking to the Globe. And members of Sharon’s school committee did not respond to requests to comment.

In response to a public records request from the Globe, a Sharon school administrator on Tuesday acknowledged that a report on the incident exists. The response came after the district asked the secretary of state to charge the Globe higher processing fees — a request the secretary of state’s office denied — and to redact much of the report, citing privacy concerns.

Rohan’s parents are waiting for answers. They suspect the school could have done more to protect Rohan. And they want the district to do better going forward.

“It’s not just about Rohan,” his father, Abhishek Shukla, said at Spaulding. “It’s about ensuring there is a good system in place that continues to build a safe program for all our kids.”

Rohan Shukla's mother, Deepika Talukdar, showed a photograph of Rohan in his Sharon High School football uniform. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

The call for an ambulance came into Sharon police headquarters at 10:44 a.m. The game was in the second quarter, Oliver Ames leading, 21-0. Generations of fans, bundled against the raw chill, packed the bleachers.

It was Sharon’s biggest game of the season, and Rohan had prepared the night before by studying film of previous games.

“He was engrossed in strategizing for the game,” his mother recalled. “He said he really wanted to play well.”

Rohan’s parents are relatively new to football. Both are software engineers, born and educated in India. They lived for more than a decade in Connecticut, where Rohan and his twin brother, Naman, were born, before settling in Sharon in 2019.

Sharon had no youth tackle football program when they arrived. So it wasn’t until Rohan and most of his teammates reached high school that they began learning how to tackle and be tackled, a potentially treacherous disadvantage in their high-powered Hockomock League.

“It’s a major problem,” Shuffain said, “like coaching high school baseball with kids who haven‘t learned how to throw and catch.”

Yet Rohan was enthralled by the sport. He attended football camp last summer at UMass Dartmouth. He never missed Sharon’s preseason conditioning sessions. He was lean and strong for his size — about 6 feet and 150 pounds — and he spent much of his free time catching passes from the school’s quarterbacks, Brady Shuffain, the coach’s son, and Brayden Salkin, whose father, Aaron, is communications director for the Patriots.

“Rohan is the type of kid a coach definitely wants to have around,” Ben Shuffain said. “A lot of kids play football but don’t love it. Rohan loves it.”

He started the season appearing only in kicking situations. By midseason, however, injuries had so depleted Sharon’s defensive secondary that Rohan was promoted to the regular unit. But in his first varsity start, a 56-0 loss to Taunton on Nov. 1, he suffered head trauma.

It was a minor concussion, the first injury of his life that required medical attention. His parents said he diligently complied with return-to-play protocols. Yet when he was ready to return to practice, he forgot to submit his doctor’s medical clearance form, and the school not only failed to require it, his parents said, but apparently also let him play again without requiring him to complete the mandatory computerized cognitive assessment.

Then came Thanksgiving. Shuffain said Rohan did “everything right” in the game, including wearing the Guardian Cap helmet cover for extra protection, “which makes [his injury] even more tragic.”

More tragic, the coach said, because the Guardian XT shell that Rohan wore over his Riddell SpeedFlex helmet appeared to be less protective in the back, where it was fastened with Velcro.

“Rohan hit his head in the area where there is no padding,” Shuffain said.

Sharon officials decided before Thanksgiving to recommend a higher-rated cover next season. They made the move, Shuffain said, after they were informed that Stoughton’s football team used SAFR shells last season and documented only one concussion.

But the decision came too late for Rohan. And when he collapsed on Thanksgiving, the school’s staff was baffled.

“We just thought he was having a seizure,” Shuffain said. “But when what we thought was a seizure wouldn’t stop, we were like, what the hell is going on?”

Rohan’s father was home, watching on community television. His mother was standing downfield, too far to see the injured player. Then her husband texted. It was Rohan. She flung her umbrella and ran. She remembered a vow Rohan had made when she lost her battle to keep him from playing football.

“He fought with me so much about it,” she said. “I would always say, ‘Rohan, break your arm or leg, and I’ll be fine, but never get hurt in your head.’ And he always said, ‘Don’t worry, Mama, I got this.’ ”

As he lay unconscious, Sharon’s cheerleaders stood shoulder to shoulder in front of him. Some were weeping. They had been instructed to shield him from the crowd, and the scene was so congested that his mother was unable to reach him. All she remembers was someone repeating, “Rohan, wake up, your mom’s here.”

Ideally, a medical doctor would have emerged to manage Rohan’s care, but none appeared. Shuffain said it was fortunate that two of his assistant coaches were off-duty police officers trained in first aid. They attended to Rohan until Shuffain, a wellness teacher and Navy veteran, joined them as soon as game officials complied with desperate cries from the crowd to halt the contest.

Shuffain said Sharon’s trainer was helpful. But how impactful the trainer was remains unclear. Several witnesses said the assistant coaches appeared to lead the effort, and the school has not provided additional information.

Rohan’s parents said they can’t help wondering if a full-time athletic trainer who was aware of Rohan’s prior concussion and witnessed his helmet-to-helmet collision just before Thanksgiving could have prevented his devastating injury by keeping him from playing the holiday game.

Sharon was the only member of the 12-school Hockomock League not to employ at least one full-time athletic trainer in 2023-24, according to the most recent data collected by the state Department of Public Health and Globe research.

Sharon posted an opening for a full-time certified trainer last Aug. 27, after football practice had begun. The school has not publicly explained why no full-timer was hired until after the football season. The median salary for a full-time athletic trainer in Massachusetts is about $60,000, according to the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.

Kristen Aguiar, chair of the secondary schools committee for the Athletic Trainers of Massachusetts, said full-time trainers are essential to providing comprehensive care.

“You have someone there every day who can see an injury happen, work with the student-athlete through rehab, communicate with parents, and handle all the little things behind the scenes,” said Aguiar, a full-time trainer at Canton High School, also a member of the Hockomock League.

Shuffain made unequivocally clear that he asked school officials before Rohan’s injury for a full-time athletic trainer to monitor his team. A former Sharon High quarterback himself, Shuffain coached Carver High School to the Division 8 Super Bowl in 2023. He said Carver, with an enrollment of only 364, employed a full-time trainer and logged just one football concussion in the championship season.

When Shuffain took over at Sharon last year, he said, he “one hundred thousand percent” wanted a full-time trainer.

Rohan Shukla concentrated during a recent physical therapy session.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Sharon’s ambulance fleet is stationed just short of a mile from the high school. Once a crew boarded, an ambulance reached the field in 1 minute, 48 seconds, fire chief Michael Madden said.

The response time felt much longer to many in the crowd, which Madden said is not unusual in desperate situations. One spectator was exceptionally dismayed, shouting that his son had died in a medical emergency. When he saw the ambulance crew walking toward Rohan, witnesses said, he shouted, “Run! Run!”

Doctors would soon discover that Rohan’s brain was hemorrhaging. And the more blood that accumulates in a person’s skull in a traumatic injury, the graver the potential damage, his neurosurgeon, Dr. William Butler of Massachusetts General Hospital, said in an interview.

Rohan’s life was in peril. Every second mattered.

The ambulance crew worked on him for 16½ minutes at the field before they delivered him to Good Samaritan Hospital in Brockton nearly 13 minutes later. An emergency CT scan showed a large pool of blood in Rohan’s skull. He was still internally bleeding, the odds of his survival diminishing.

He needed emergency surgery at Mass. General, 24 miles to the north. The fastest way to transport him was by Boston MedFlight helicopter, which could reach MGH in less than 15 minutes.

But the weather was too poor. He would need to wait for a specially equipped ground ambulance, staffed with a critical care team — crushing news for his parents.

It was 12:40 p.m., more than two hours after his head hit the ground, before Rohan departed for Boston. Holiday traffic was thick, the highway jammed for stretches. As the ambulance lurched forward, siren wailing, his mother sat up front, shivering with dread.

“I felt at one point like I was going to have a heart attack,” she said.

The trip took nearly 40 minutes. When they arrived at Mass. General, Rohan’s mother was urged to kiss him goodbye before he was rushed to the operating room.

While families in Sharon and Easton gathered for Thanksgiving dinner, some praying for Rohan, Butler began trying to save him. Over the next three hours, Butler carved out a piece of Rohan’s skull to drain the pool of blood — a massive 1-liter clot — and relieve the pressure that was depriving his brain cells of oxygen.

“At this point, we’re trying to keep him alive,” he told Rohan’s parents after.

Butler has practiced neurosurgery for more than 30 years and teaches at Harvard Medical School. He said his team conducted a thorough diagnostic evaluation and found “no prior or predisposing condition” that would have caused Rohan’s injury. It resulted from trauma.

Butler’s team also found no evidence of a prior cerebral hemorrhage, or brain bleed. But Rohan’s parents cited the possibility that his helmet-to-helmet collision before Thanksgiving weakened an artery that ruptured in the game.

No matter the cause, his outlook was bleak. The brain of a popular, physically fit boy who was an A student and good citizen was severely compromised. As he lay in a recovery room, his parents and friends prayed together.

Every day since, at least one of Rohan’s parents has remained by his side while specialists have painstakingly helped him reclaim as much as possible of who he was. His parents take turns spending the night with him. One sleeps with Rohan, while the other cares at home for his brother.

Rohan remained in a coma for nearly a month, oblivious to well-wishers in the pediatric intensive care unit, Bruins players among them. He has since watched heartening video messages from the Patriots and their alumni, including Devin McCourty.

Bruins (clockwise from bottom left) Mason Lohrei, Tyler Johnson, Trent Frederic, Elias Lindholm, and Mark Kastelic visited Rohan Shukla in the hospital.COURTESY

The Sharon community has rallied, too, helping in every way a family stricken by such a tragedy could imagine. Oliver Ames football coach John Sperrazza and his players have delivered flowers and food. Shuffain has visited regularly, and one of Rohan’s teammates, Sam Letendre, launched a GoFundMe that has raised nearly $90,000.

“Almost every day people are in touch with us, helping us, praying for us,” Rohan’s mother said. “We are so grateful.”

Rohan’s recovery has been agonizingly slow but progressively encouraging. Just as hope was waning five weeks after surgery, his right eye slowly began to open, the first in a series of small but significant breakthroughs. He then was transferred to Spaulding, where his left eye gradually opened.

Rohan’s treatment team says his mind is recovering faster than his body. He is not yet close to talking or walking, but he has regained most of his long-term memory. He recognizes friends and relatives, and, in perhaps the most promising development, is learning again to communicate, thanks to regaining movement of his right hand and arm. He is grasping how to write again and to use rudimentary sign language.

He knows now that his brain was injured in the Thanksgiving game. But when his parents ask what he remembers about it, he taps his head and twirls his index finger to indicate the memory is lost. Sometimes, in his darkest moments, he tears up. Other times, when he and his brother tease each other, he appears to smile, though he has yet to reclaim control of his facial muscles.

Rohan Shukla's mother, Deepika Talukdar (far left), cheered him on as he was helped to stand by rehab aide Mariella Todebush (left) and physical therapist Juliann Cosetta.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Rohan Shukla again is learning to communicate, thanks to regaining movement of his right hand and arm.John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

“His personality is coming back,” his mother said. “It gives me so much happiness.”

Rohan achieved a milestone 17 weeks after surgery when he was able to breathe well enough on his own for an oxygen tube to be removed from his trachea. But arduous challenges remain. His recovery will be measured not in weeks or months but years, his parents have been told. He has not regained control of the vast majority of his muscles from his head to his feet, and the frustration can be piercing.

But he perseveres. When he sees his mother’s eyes well with tears, Rohan makes the sign of a smile.

“It’s OK, Mama,” he says in sign language. “Smile, too.”

Yet joy is often elusive for his parents. They worry about their family’s future, their careers, their financial footing, the chances of Rohan recovering enough to live independently, and the safety of his brother, who competes for Sharon in baseball and indoor track, as well as the school’s other student-athletes.

While Sharon officials have said nothing publicly about what they may have learned from the tragedy, the football team has been told it will no longer compete in the Hockomock League but will instead play an independent schedule against more evenly matched opponents. And Shuffain cited the hiring of a full-time trainer.

Rohan’s parents said they hope more is done to spare other parents from heartache.

“When we sign our kids up to play a sport at school, of course we know there’s some risk,” they said. “But we believe that the school system will do everything possible to protect them. We trust that the right safety measures are in place and that if something goes wrong, people will be ready. Rohan was a perfectly healthy, happy boy who just loved to play football. Now, his life has changed forever.”

They said they pray every day for a miracle — for a moment when someone at Spaulding says, “Rohan, wake up, your mom’s here.” And it will be time for him, at long last, to go home.

After one of his physical therapy sessions, Deepika Talukdar whispered to her son, Rohan Shukla, on the way back to his room at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff

Bob Hohler can be reached at robert.hohler@globe.com.