The mother of a Damien High School football player who suffered a concussion in a game on Friday night gave a harrowing interview to KHON which was broadcast last night. In her telling, there was no automatic medical response, no coordinated team response, and plan in place for what to do if such an injury were to occur.
“It was really difficult for him because at one moment when he was sitting on the bench and we all thought it was a seizure he fell out of my husband’s arms and his words before he fell was Daddy, I love you,” says Nohea.
“I started screaming to the Damien parents and supporters to call the ambulance call 911 I was screaming my guts out to get somebody to help my son,” says Nohea.
Is that the state of prep football? If your parents aren’t at the game when you’re injured, you’re just out of luck?
Again, though, the reporting seems to have avoided the larger and more significant context of preparations by the team and the league for this kind of injury. These are the public policy issues that need to be aired, but the opportunity has so far been missed. The Star-Advertiser has a story about the teen’s “recovery,” as does its Hawaii Prep World blog, but neither touch on any of the policy issues.
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Glad to hear that he’s getting better but it’s scary to hear that they were ill equipped to deal with concussion issues. With the NFL lately emphasizing player safety in regards to concussions, you’d think it would trickle down to the high school level. Pulling for a full recovery for this young man.
Football is not a sport to continue in Hawaii, if we care about our children. Long term affects of injuries are now public. Water sports are much healthier.
A related issue on this week’s FRONTLINE
Episode: Football High
(First Aired: April 12, 2011)
Heat stroke injuries plague high school athletes.
CC
9:00 – 10:00 PM KHETOC (10)
However, contact sports are part of our culture both here in Hawai`i as well as acroos the country. The issue is creating and following through on safety issues.
Having attended probably close to 2500 games at all levels from T-Ball to the NFL in my lifetime – football, basketball, baseball, softball, and volleyball and even played a few back in the day – I’ve seen some incredibly talented players for whom denying them the chance to play a particular sport would be the same as denying Mozart access to musical instruments.
The lack of an immediate medical response seems especially shocking given the statements by Eddie Klaneski, the Damien coach, in today’s paper thatt he student had no pulse, was not breathing, and could have died. If he was left on the sideline after that, only to suffer a collapse that finally prompted a 911 call, someone was seriously asleep at the switch.
Despite legislation and, I believe, some funding in the past few years, DOE has also done poorly with regard to staffing athletic events with trainers necessary for general safety reasons. Add to that the specifics of concussions (and the need for preseason baseline testing to give a reference point for post-concussion testing, training in concussion recognition, etc.), and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. (Of course, Damien is an ILH school, so a non-state bureaucracy would in any event be necessary to get it and other independent schools to act).
There was concussion-specific legislation introduced in 2011 that would have required DOE action but none of it passed, at least in part, no doubt, because of the fiscal impacts. Is that penny-wise and pound-foolish? Probably, given the likelihood of more injuries, perhaps a fatality, and the inevitable lawsuits. See, for example, “Former football player sues school over concussions,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; April 7, 2011; http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11097/1137722-100.stm
In contrast to some of the above comments, there was an immediate response to the injury with a doctor and two trainers coming over from the Moanalua sideline to help. There also was an EMT in the stands who immediately came down to assist. The player had a seizure which is certainly very scary especially for lay people but his airway management was appropriate and his heart rate was stable and monitored with an AED.
As far as DOE policy regarding concussions, this year new measures were put in place to add to existing ones. Players are given baseline testing and there are strict guidelines regarding return to play.
In a nutshell, the media reporting focused on the distraught parents and bystanders and not on the the factual emergency measures. Although it was a serious injury, he is recovering well and reports are that he will be released from the hospital today.
I am happy to have been mistaken in this regard. It’s hard to gauge what happened based on a quote from an obviously distressed parent. Reality is skewed as they are in the moment. Seconds could feel like minutes as they are in such a state of panic and horror.
Link between Parkinson’s disease and traumatic brain injury
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110822102101.htm
“While most people know the results of a traumatic brain injury — ranging from a simple headache to long-term problems with memory and thinking, depending on the severity — few are aware that such an injury can also increase one’s risk later in life for Parkinson’s disease, the neurodegenerative disorder that affects roughly 1 percent to 2 percent of the population over the age of 65”
This focus on athletics is terribly skewed in the wrong direction.
Those activities should be second to the primary objective of getting our kids a good education. Instead, we subject these teenagers to the risk of massive trauma for the sake of public entertainment.
Not to diminish the fright the parents endured but they seem to more balanced than the anti-football commentators.
Do you realize the inherent dangers in basketball for boys or girls or in soccer, especially for head injuries to females? Check out pole vaulting, now a gender neutral event.
For all the injuries a prep or college athlete may face, I would taken them over auto wrecks and the old swimming hole.
I covered sports for 46 years in five states and never wrote about a fatality.Teen fatals in vehicle wrecks and downing by swimming are too numerous to remember. Our daughter competed in high school water polo for four years and we recall vividly a teammate who might have drowned after being paralyzed by a cheap chop to the neck. Her family’s friend leaped instinctively into Kawamoto pool to prevent a possible drowning.
This does not mention the abuse and misuse of guns and bow and arrows that lead to maiming and death.
A little perspective is in order here.