North Texas student on life support after fall during ‘Senior Assassin’ game
A 17-year-old North Texas high school senior was critically injured and is hospitalized on life support after an accident while playing the game “Senior Assassin” in Arlington.
In the game that’s popular among graduating high school students, players armed with water guns have a list of classmates they have to track down and “assassinate.”
On April 20, Isaac Leal, a baseball player at South Grand Prairie High School, was chasing other students with his water gun through an Arlington neighborhood. While playing the game, Leal jumped onto the back of a parked Jeep, which then drove away, his family told KTVT-TV.
Leal was standing on the back bumper of the Jeep as it made several turns before it hit a dip in the road and threw him onto the pavement, where he hit his head, his family told the CBS news station.
“They were playing Senior Assassin. He jumped on a young girl’s Jeep as it was parked. The girl reversed and took off and drove for five minutes at a high speed to where he could not jump off,” Leal’s mother, Raquel Vazquez, told KXAS-TV.
Surveillance videos from neighbors’ security cameras showed Leal riding on the back of the Jeep and then an ambulance responding after he fell, the NBC station reported.
Leal has been on life support at Medical City Arlington since the accident, his family said.
Only EMS responded to the scene, and the family told KTVT that they want a criminal investigation.
Arlington police are in contact with Leal’s family and are investigating the incident to determine whether a criminal offense occurred, police told the Star-Telegram.
Police said they were made aware of the accident on Saturday, May 3, when Leal’s family contacted them. Officers responded to the hospital to speak with the family and a police report was taken.
“In reviewing calls for service from the date the incident occurred, April 20, we learned that EMS responded to the accident site for what was described as an unconscious person,” police said.
Officers were never dispatched and “we were not notified that Mr. Leal’s injuries stemmed from a traffic incident until we spoke with his family this past weekend,” police said.
Police said based on evidence detectives reviewed, it appears Leal was hanging onto the back of the vehicle when the accident occurred.
The traffic division is leading the ongoing investigation, police said.
Vazquez, who wants Leal to be moved to a different hospital, told KXAS her son was too unstable to be transferred. “We can’t even roll him in the bed without his vitals reacting,” she said.
This story was originally published May 7, 2025 at 10:48 PM.