If you recall our post earlier today there was a link about the AFL wanting more information about an injury that occurred in the Carlton/Collingwood match.  It resulted in some peculiar signs from Kade Simpson.

AFL.com.au writer Damian Barrett wrote about this; noting that medical personnel would have some serious consternation with it;

AFL MEDICAL professionals loathe it when non-medical people critique their work.

Some get so incensed they verge on apoplexy.

So we make this observation with bated breath – some decisions made by AFL doctors during a football match seem to be influenced by the state of that game.

Rightly or wrongly, Collingwood has twice this year put back onto the field players who had already sustained damage, only for those players, Luke Ball and Scott Pendlebury, to later be diagnosed with serious problems.

Out of the weekend’s round 15 matches, two clubs, Carlton and Essendon, were questioned over their handling of stricken players, respectively Kade Simpson and Kyle Reimers.

The hit on Simpson by Collingwood’s Sharrod Wellingham was horrific, and left the Blue midfielder with a broken jaw and arm spasms.

The AFL meds aren’t the only ones, the docs (and athletic trainers) here are very wary of any observation resulting in “sideline medicine”.  However, not only am I a trained medical professional specializing in concussions but the brain injury of concussion is subjective.  Meaning simply that you can assess or observe a concussion from signs produced from the insult to the brain.

In this particular case Simpson did in fact show clear, overt signs of a concussion; yet was allowed to return to play.  How do I know, heck all of you should be able to observe it yourself, look… Continue reading →