A beloved 19-year-old Morgan Hill athlete, who was inflicted with a mysterious illness that landed him in a coma for nearly five months, died Dec. 21, according to his brother.
Tola Mov, an Ann Sobrato High School alumnus, former basketball player and youth referee for the YMCA of Silicon Valley, was taken off life support at 2:30 p.m. Monday. He was being treated at Stanford Medical Center, where doctors kept him in a medically-induced coma to prevent seizures while they attempted to diagnose his condition.
“Last week, on Thursday, the doctor talked to my dad and told him there was no way my brother was going to survive from this because they found the infection around his liver and also around the organ system around his liver,” said older brother Sokthea Mov, who has been offering public updates on his brother’s condition for several months.
The friendly and well-liked young man was in good health until feeling ill following a bike ride back on Aug. 2. He has been treated at three hospitals since then with doctors still trying to diagnose his condition. His mother took him to Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy before he was transferred to Santa Clara Valley Hospital, and then Stanford.
“What I will miss most about him is he’s a nice kid. He’s the one that is active in the family compared to myself and our middle brother,” Sokthea Mov said. “He always helped my parents, and now I realize that he’s not there anymore.”
Funeral services for Tola Mov were held Dec. 23 in San Jose, according to his older brother.
The Mov family moved to Morgan Hill 10 years ago from Cambodia.
“He loved the United States,” Sokthea Mov said. “People are really friendly.”
A Facebook page titled “RIP – Tola Mov” was recently created, with two photos—one of Tola Mov and one of a landscape at sunset—posted Dec. 21. The page includes a link to a fundraising site on gofundme.com, where family and friends have been collecting donations for Mov’s medical expenses. The fundraising site can be found at gofundme.com/tolamovfund.
