Denver Post

Another Blogger Thinks More Education Is Needed

Dustin Fink3 Comments

Sporting Jules, presumably from Colorado was watching the Broncos/Bills preseason game last night and had some immediate observations on a hit that was penalized.  Rookie safety Rahim Moore of the Broncos hit wide receiver Donald Jones on the sideline that resulted in a flag.  Jules wrote about it on her blog;

By “hit/tackled,” I could have said “helmet-to-helmet hit” or “unbelievably illegal shot to the head,” and I wouldn’t have been wrong.

Two things bothered me greatly in this play’s immediate aftermath:

  • Despite the fact that Jones fell to the ground with his arms in a stiff posture and his helmet partially knocked off by the hit, local Broncos announcers never ever uttered the word “concussion.”  Instead, several minutes later, Continue reading →
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McAvoy, through the REAP initiative, seeks to make sure athletes fully recover from a concussion before returning to play. If not, the consequences can be devastating.

Jake Snakenberg, unlike Camden, never got a second chance. Snakenberg, a freshman football player at Grandview, died from Second Impact Syndrome after suffering two concussions in a one-week span in September 2004.

Ryan Casey of the Denver Post wrote a story about the impact of concussions beyond sports in today’s edition.

Unable to focus, Courtney was pulled out of school. She started sleeping up to 20 hours a day. She started losing things.

“I would forget where I was,” Camden said. “It was not good.”

Five days after her concussion, the migraines started. Mother’s Day came and went. Other symptoms — the lethargy, the forgetfulness, the inability to concentrate — grew worse.

“She just couldn’t

Sideline concussion tests — like this one given by Chaparral athletic trainer Maggie Yates — are a crucial step in making sure high school athletes don’t return to play before they have fully recovered from a hit. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)

do what was asked of her, physically or mentally,” Joellen said. “All of a sudden, there was like nothing. I used to say it was like looking into her, and it was hollow. And I’m like, ‘Who is this?’ “Ten days after the concussion diagnosis, the family visited The Children’s Hospital in Littleton, where Courtney was put through a series of cognitive examinations, including a standard test during which she was told three words to remember and asked to recall them after a five- or 10-minute conversation.

“If she got one or two, we were lucky,” Joellen said. “I’m sitting there going, ‘That’s like the capacity of a 6-year-old.’ ”

Read the entire story HERE