Head Injuries in Sports

The boy was running as fast as he could, the football safely tucked in his hand. Other players were charging at him, with a killer look in their eyes. But the boy only ran faster. He ran like there was no tomorrow, until he slipped on a rock that somehow got onto the field. The boy was falling. He hit his head on the field, the impact crushing his helmet. The crack of his skull echoed throughout the stadium. The boy was dead. He was one among the estimated 53,000 people that die from traumatic brain injuries every year.
Involvement in sports and recreation activities may cause traumatic brain injury. A Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs when an external force traumatically injures the brain. This is a serious current event that needs to brought to the attention of people. Thousands of people die yearly due to TBIs. Compared to adults, children and adolescents are at a higher risk for traumatic brain injury with more severe injuries and prolonged recovery. It is recommended by some experts that children do not play in a tackle football league till fourteen years of age. This is due to the fact that a child’s brain can be seriously harmed when playing and does not fully develop till 21-25 years of age. Some people don’t have full brain development till they are in their early 30’s or late 20’s. Even wearing a helmet cannot fully protect your head.
During 1997--2007, approximately 580,000 persons died with traumatic brain injury -related diagnoses in the United States, of which roughly 16.5 percent was sports-related. A recent victim of sport-related head injury was Junior Seau, a NFL linebacker for the New England Patriots. Over the course of his career he suffered over 1500 concussions. On May 2, 2012, Seau committed suicide because of concussion triggered depression. Another recent victim of head injury was Nathan Stiles. Nathan was a high school star senior running back and linebacker. One day while Nathan was running for a touchdown he sustained head injury.