A great piece of news from the head injury front

Recently, a player was "earholed" (hit in the side of the helmet, forcefully) on a play and pulled himself from the game.  The athlete went to the AT admitting to various TBI related symptoms and was taken into the building for further examination.  This athlete's parents followed the team physician into the office where she performed her evaluation.  By the time the AT got into the office about 10 minutes later when halftime arrived, the father met the AT requested that the AT not put his son back in the game and hide his helmet.  He was very happy to hear that this AT had already taken the helmet from him.

I was pleased to hear that the father was educated enough to know the dangers and not risk further injury.  While there is still a lot of work that needs to be done on the education front (as is demonstrated in my previous post,) It is stories like this that make the efforts encouraging since it is showing some signs of progress.  If I could, I would give a helmet sticker to the parents for their awareness regarding this issue and I applaud them for their efforts and remaining educated in this issue.

Public and Coaching Education Required

Lately, it seems that there is a great lack of respect for the amount of knowledge that an athletic trainer brings to the table when it comes to traumatic brain injuries.  Certainly, I have stated the case may times, including on this blog, that parents of high school athletes don't really understand the lack of current training of emergency room physicians.

However, it has also been demonstrated to me that an insidious idea is more wide spread than I previously thought.  The idea that having the title "doctor" means that they are the authority on ALL things medicine is a fallacy.  The notion that an individual doctor can know every injury and stay current on every topic is flat out absurd.  The latest instance came where a pediatric oncologist (who as I understand is exceptional an oncologist) signed off for a kid to return to play in a youth football game.  I find it difficult to believe that an oncologist has the same kind of updated training that a neurosurgeon or a neuropsychologist does in treating TBIs.  I find that the willingness of physicians who probably have not had any training with TBI since their days of residency to do a quick evaluation on the sidelines and sign a piece of paper to allow a child with a potential TBI to return to play to be appalling.  I don't know of a single physician that would allow anyone else to intrude into their area of specialty and try to make recommendations based on outdated evaluative techniques and theories.  I don't see where this is any different.

The most frustrating part of this is that the parents and coaches that were most closely connected to this situation completely disregarded the opinion of the individual who was identified as an athletic trainer (who also happened to be a referee of the game).  The league administrators even scoffed at the idea that the athletic trainer's experience may have been sufficient to recognize the possible TBI and send the child for further evaluation.  It was plainly obvious that these individuals had absolutely no idea of the background of a certified athletic trainer and need to be enlightened.

Five football players from one team rushed to ED in one game

This was a scary news article that just cam across my twitter feed via our local Fox station.  It appears that in one local game this past weekend, five kids were sent to the emergency room from one team.  That's right, five kids from one team.  Once of the five was even life-flighted to the local level 3 trauma center.

Granted, it was the hottest day of the season by far, including all of our two a day camps.  It was in the low to mid nineties with very high humidity and it pushed the heat index up over 100.  We hadn't seen these kinds of temperatures in northeast Ohio since the third week of July, before football camp started.

We also dealt with our fair share of heat cramps that evening on both of our sidelines that evening.  (Which by the way, we played about 10 miles away from where this terrible situation occurred.)  Because all of the ED trips were for members of the same team, I highly suspect that there was a group of kids drinking the energy drink that were alluded to in the article.  Previous posts on this blog have attempted to demonstrate the dangers of consuming these energy drinks before the intense exercise.  One thing is for sure, I will be using this as a "teachable moment" for our kids to learn from.

The article from local news source is referenced here.

Updated (8:54 p.m. 9/4/2011) After doing a little more digging, I found that according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association, there is no athletic trainer currently serving at Conneaut High School.  Since the OHSAA is usually very good at updating the information on this directory, I assume this to be the case.  If this is true, it would be very hard to blame an athletic trainer if there wasn't one available.  This just goes to reinforce the fact that if you cannot afford an athletic trainer, then you cannot afford an athletic program.  Of course, many poorly educated individuals are still firing off all kinds of inappropriate comments on various outlets including Fox 8's post on Facebook.

The Second Update (9:32 a.m. 9/5/2011) Since the original article was posted from the local Fox station left a lot to the imagination, the school district released a statement that clears up the situation a bit.

    "Five Conneaut athletes and one Warren Champion athlete were transported from Conneaut Stadium via ambulance to neighboring medical facilities during the game on Friday night. All were released on Friday, with the exception of one Conneaut athlete who is expected to be released later this week from a Cleveland hospital. Preliminary findings indicate that two Conneaut athletes and one Warren Champion athlete were suffering from the effects of the oppressive heat and humidity. The remaining athletes, all from Conneaut, incurred injuries as a result of the game itself. These injuries included a bruised rib, a possible concussion, and a knee injury. Shortly into the fourth quarter, after a brief conference between the referees and a mutual agreement between both team's coaches; the game was halted. The decision was made in what was thought to be in the best interests of the athletes. The Conneaut Area City Schools would like to thank all of the emergency responders, the Conneaut and Warren Champion coaching staffs, school administrators, and volunteer parents who aided in the crisis. Cooperation among all involved resulted in a resolution that protected the health and well-being of student-athletes."  (From the Conneaut School District)

The explanation that only three of the athletes were heat related does help, but the explanation does add that there was one additional athlete from the visiting team that was transported bringing the total to six.  However, the young men with the bruised ribs and the knee injuries would possibly have been screened away from EMS if there was any medical staff there available on the school's sideline.  This sounds more like coaches who are trying to be careful in the absence of an athletic trainer on the sidelines.  This story should only reinforce the fact the statement I made earlier about being able to afford an athletic program.