May 10, 2015 5 min read

YARDLEY – Graham and Cathy Thomas really had two options.

They could let the tragedy of their son taking his own life consume them, or they could use it to help keep others from experiencing depression from brain injuries.

They chose the latter.

Their teenage son, Willy Alexander “Zander” Thomas, the oldest of four children, was a star hockey player.

He did everything he could to excel on the ice, both for Team Comcast in Pennsauken, N.J., and at Pennington School in Pennington, N.J., where he helped the school achieve one of its best seasons when he was just a freshman.

Hockey was his life.

Because of his skill level, he traveled across the country and to Canada, honing his craft with Team Comcast, a high-level, travel hockey club.

A hockey phenom since he was a child, he took a year off from playing before entering high school to work on becoming an elite athlete. He had trainers, including former NHL star Eric Brule and ex-Philadelphia Eagle Vaughn Hebron. They weren’t interested in getting him to become a great hockey player, his dad said, but in helping him become a top-notch athlete.

When he entered high school, Zander took his strength and conditioning to the rink. He worked on his stickhandling and his shooting; he’d do his best to get stronger, faster, smarter, better.

“He loved it; he always had all the best equipment, the best shin guards, the best gloves, he had everything you could imagine,” his dad said. “He always wanted to be better, but he always had fun.”

When he was a sophomore in the 2012-13 school year, Zander also suffered a bit from depression, according to his dad, who said that was uncharacteristic for his son. Zander had always been an outgoing kid, popular and loved by his teammates and classmates. Still, Graham said, the depression was there.

“He was depressed, but it wasn’t like he was always sad,” Graham said. “He had a lot of friends, he was very outgoing. We didn’t really understand it.”

A few months later, Zander became a member of the national Tier I Elite Hockey League, the highest level of amateur youth hockey in the United States.

He was diagnosed with his first concussion in September 2013, when he was a high school junior. That didn’t mean it was his first head injury, Graham noted; it was just the first time he received an official diagnosis.

“At the time, we didn’t know how dangerous concussions were,” Zander’s dad said. “A lot has come out recently, and continues to come out, but we didn’t know how dangerous this was, and we didn’t put the depression and the concussion together.”

The high school junior was given the green light to play three weeks after his first diagnosed concussion. His team headed to New Hampshire for a college showcase event, where Graham said Zander was his old play-making self and showed no signs of his injury.

“We came home late Saturday night and he was talking about going out when we got home,” the dad said. “I told him it was too late. He fell asleep in the car, and when we got home, he helped unload the car, then went in and went to bed. No problems; he was himself.”

But the next day, Zander was anything but himself.

On the surface, things seemed fine, but later in the day, Graham said, Zander’s concussion caused him to make a decision that changed his life – and the life of his family – forever.

The Lower Makefield family woke up and went to a family gathering in Flemington, N.J. Zander decided to sit out the function. Instead, he told his folks he planned to spend time with his girlfriend until she had soccer practice.

After his girlfriend left for practice, Zander was alone.

“We got a text that said ‘Mom and dad, this isn’t your fault, but we have to end the cycle of madness,’ and we really didn’t know what it meant,” Graham said. “His girlfriend got a similar text, and we didn’t know what to make of it, but we knew something was wrong.”

The cryptic text left him scared, so Graham called around.

“We were 45 minutes away, so I called his friend and asked him to run over to the house because I didn’t know what to expect. I was worried he was doing something in the house,” Graham said.

They tried calling and texting him. Nothing. Finally, they got the idea to track his iPhone.

“We got onto the computer and we could see his phone was up in New York,” Graham said. “But it was moving around. We figured he was in New York, so we called police, described the car and told them to be on the lookout for him. We figured we’d just have to find them.”

Unfortunately, it was too late.

The iPhone was in motion because Zander’s car had been towed.

Zander – the happy teen from a close family, who had lots of friends, earned good grades and was crafting a successful hockey career – parked his car near the George Washington Bridge and plunged to his death in the Hudson River. Zander died on Oct. 27, 2013 – just three months after his first diagnosed concussion.

“When he died, people called and said they wanted to donate money,” Graham said. “But we were thinking ‘donate to what?’ So we started a fund in his memory”

The family founded the UNTOLD Foundation, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that teaches children and adults about the dangers of concussions. The group sponsors workshops, speaking engagements at national seminars and other events.

On Saturday, the UNTOLD Foundation will hold its second annual Zander Fest 5K run and walk in Washington Crossing. The event includes food, entertainment and activities and the money raised will go toward concussion education.