CHAPEL HILL -- The death of Chapel Hill High football player Atlas Fraley came just two months after the school board adopted a new policy designed to help prevent weather-related injuries.

The state Medical Examiner's Office says it does not yet know why Fraley died but is investigating dehydration as one possible cause.

The school board adopted a policy in June on preventing weather related illness and injury.

The policy says heat- and humidity-related illness and injury can range from simple muscle cramps, to more severe heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke.

Among other things, it requires hiring certified athletic trainers trained to respond to weather-related conditions and making sure all middle and high school coaches complete a course on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, automated external defibrillators and first aid, including weather-related injuries.

"We spent a year looking at it," school board Chairwoman Pam Hemminger said Monday. "To have [this] happen after we were attempting to avoid it is just heartbreaking."

The high temperature at Raleigh-Durham International Airport on Aug. 12, the day Fraley died, was 89 degrees, normal for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service. The humidity was very low for August, and the heat index never rose out of the mid-80s, he said.

Fraley's father, David, has said his son had been following a hydration program, drinking several bottles of Gatorade and of water before each evening practice this summer. But the Aug. 12 scrimmage was a morning game, so his son had not had a chance to drink his normal amount beforehand.

About 1:45 p.m. after the scrimmage that day, the 17-year-old Fraley called 911, complaining of dehydration and full-body cramps. He had gone in and out of the game complaining of cramps, and teammates have said Fraley had to stand for much of the bus ride home from Apex because his legs were cramping.

Emergency responders arrived at his home at 1:54 p.m. and left at 2:16 p.m., according to a recording of emergency radio traffic.

Orange County Emergency Services administrators have not said what the first responders did for Fraley, whose parents found him dead a few hours later.

On Monday, school officials said the district's legal firm will investigate Fraley's death to make sure district policies were followed during the Aug. 12 scrimmage and to see if the system can learn anything for the future.

Hemminger said she felt a personal connection to Fraley's death because she has twin 17-year-old sons.

"We're just all devastated by it,' she said. "We just don't know what happened."

The Fraley family has hired its own lawyer, Donald Strickland, to investigate their son's death.

"Right now there are more questions than answers, and it would not be appropriate for me to speculate on exactly what happened until our investigation is complete," Strickland said Monday.