While we may not always take sports-related head injuries seriously, they can often be more traumatic and dangerous than people realize. The injury could be a concussion, Hematoma, Skull fracture, or a number of other injuries. Serious head injuries have occurred in sports, ending people’s careers and their lives, and therefore, it is time we start treating them with the serious nature that they deserve.
There are a number of head injuries that can occur in sports. A concussion happens when your brain is rapidly shaken. It could be caused by you falling down and hitting your head, or a head to head hit in football. there are hundreds of ways to get a concussion. They can last from just a couple of hours to several months, just depending on how hard you or something hits your head. Hematoma is when pooling of the blood in your tissue right outside of the blood vessels. Can be caused by when a blood vessel gets damaged from a hard hit to the head, causing it to start bleeding around your brain.
There is three different types of hematoma all depending on where and how hard you get hit. Dura mater is the outermost part, arachnoid is the middle, and pia mater is the innermost part. Skull fracture is the breaking or cracking of your skull. if you have a skull fracture you could also have hematoma or a concussion. Cracking of the skull is a very serious thing that needs needs to taken care of right then and there it could lead to bleeding of the brain (hematoma). Diffuse Axonal Injury (DAI) is one of the most common type of brain injury, it is your nerves in the brain that can get damaged very easily from a fall to a hard hit in a football game or practice. It can cause your brain to start miscommunicating with other cells and can not be so good if not treated the right way.
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Parents are concerned with letting their kids participate in high school football. Clayton a 17-year-old junior who was the starting linebacker for his high school football team, has been told his whole life hard hits are the best, the harder you hit the harder the harder they fall, coaches would tell him to lead with his head when he would make a tackle. But one day clayton went to practice just like any other day, him and his teammates were doing tackling drills like most days so this was nothing new to them, but on this day clayton went to make the tackle and his teammate lowered his helmet and they hit helmet to helmet, Clayton fell back to the ground but got straight up like nothing was wrong but he was dizzy and light headed but he would not tell his coaches because he didn’t want to lose his starting position. it is not the first time he had gotten dizzy when he hit someone.
When he got up the next day tho he knew someone was seriously wrong, when he went to school that day he did not recognize anyone, he could not even reconoize his friends that he has known for years and years. He was confused and felt “out of the body,” as Clayton told his school nurse. Clayton decided to leave football that summer and put it all behind him, as he said, “It was one of the hardest decision I have ever made, I am not going to let one year of high school football determine how the rest of my life goes” (Bubar and Stoffers).
Not everybody who had a head injury has had the life threatening threatening eye opener that clayton experienced. There is a ton of not only high school football players but also college football players and professional football players that never had that chance. A 16-year-old high school football player in Georgia.had a head to head injury on a friday night. The one boy passed away 2 days after the head injury because no one thought much about it. In 2015 a 17-year-old boy who loved in Washington State died after a routine collision in practice following a concussion. In Oklahoma a 16-year-old high school football player passed away after making a tackle with is head. (Bubar and Stoffers) Inky Johnson was the safety and cornerback for tennessee volunteers in 2005 and 2006, He was the number one safety in college at that time he was projected to be drafted in the top 3 to play in the NFL.
On September 9th 2006 The Tennessee Volunteers was playing air force at home. There was two minutes left in the game inky johnson went to make a tackle and hit this guy with his head. When he fell to the ground he could not move. He almost lost his life that game, When he got through surgery the doctor told him that they saved his life but his right arm was permanently paralyzed for the rest of his life meaning no more football. Now Inky Johnson is using his life story to become a motivational speaker. Ryan Shazier is a linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers. They had a game on a monday night against the Cincinnati Bengals. Ryan goes to make a tackle and his head hit the guys hip. he had a spinal injury after hitting that guy with his head. he is making a come back to the NFL but it is taking years. There are hundreds of more career and life ending injuries.
Because of all the injuries that has happened and also because in the 2016 and 2017 season the concussion rate has gone up 13 percent since then. This rule is called targeting, it has stopped all the head to head injuries and contact. If a player leads with his helmet and hits someone above the shoulders that player will be thrown out of the game and the team will be penalized 15 yards added to the end of the drive. Head Injuries have turned hundreds of kids from not wanting to play the game they love and the Football association decided to start making rules to stop all the concussions and head to head hits. so that way football can still be a physical and fun game to play but also will be a lot safer of a game to play for people of all ages. (Barca).
