At least 7 teens have died playing football this year — but are other sports safer?
They collapsed during practice and games. One never got up from a hit. Another went into cardiac arrest.
At least seven students between the ages of 12 and 18 have died during sanctioned football games and practices at their middle and high schools this season, according to media reports.
Some of the direct causes are still unknown, and a pre-existing condition contributed in at least one case. But the premature deaths were no less troubling for families and peers.
“Fatalities in the sport of football are rare but tragic events,” the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research said in a report earlier this year.
The students
Most recently, News9 reported middle schooler Riley Boatwright was carried off the field during a game on Tuesday in Lexington, Oklahoma. The eighth-grader was given CPR by paramedics but “did not survive.”
A student in Florida was taken off life support the day before, Fox News reported.
Jacquez Welch, a 17-year-old senior at Northeast High School in St. Petersburg, never got up from a tackle during a Friday night football game, according to the media outlet.
Welch was “suffering from severe bleeding to the brain due to a pre-existing condition,” his coach Jeremy Frioud said, Fox News reported.
Sixteen-year-old Peter Webb in Oklahoma and 17-year-old Alex Miller in West Virginia collapsed on the field during separate football games on the same night — Sept. 13, CBS News reported.
According to The Oklahoman, Webb died that Sunday “after suffering a head injury.” Miller was taken to a hospital but later died, WOWK reported.
Another 16-year-old, Kadin Roberts-Day, collapsed during an indoor football practice Sept. 4, according to KCTV. He reportedly went into cardiac arrest before dying.
Skylar Lasby, a 12-year-old seventh-grader in Michigan, died after collapsing during a no-contact drill Aug. 28, WZZM 13 reported. Lasby “suffered a sudden cardiac death from an abnormal heartbeat.”
In the earliest death this season, 14-year-old Hezekiah Walters from Tampa, Florida, collapsed while running drills June 11 and died, Fox News reported.
The statistics
The National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research releases a yearly report surveying football-related deaths in the country.
In its most recent report, the center recorded 16 total fatalities among football players of all levels in 2018 — nine of which were high schoolers and one was a middle schooler.
Two of the high school football players’ deaths were deemed directly related to football.
“Both direct fatalities in 2018 occurred during competition in regularly scheduled games,” the report states. “Of the direct fatalities, one injury occurred to the brain and one injury occurred to the cervical spine.”
An additional four died from indirect causes, such as heat stroke, sudden cardiac arrest or secondary complications such as an infection, according to the report.
The middle schooler’s death was considered a “non-exertion related fatality.”
Data from 2017 shifts slightly with a total of 20 recorded fatalities — 12 of which were high schoolers, the center said in an earlier report.
Researchers at the center made several recommendations, including mandatory medical evaluations, correct conditioning, regular access to an athletic trainer and proper instruction on tackling and blocking.
They also expressed concern over a more recent trend — sickle cell trait.
“From 1980-2010, 15 college football players have died after an on field collapse due to complication of sickle cell trait,” the researchers said. “Many athletes do not know their sickle cell status even though screening is done at birth.”
By comparison
The National Athletic Trainers’ Association released a report earlier this year that found most “sudden deaths” in youth sports between 2007 and 2015 actually occurred in basketball. The study examined middle school — but not high school — athletics.
More than a third of all sudden death cases were attributed to basketball, followed by baseball and football.
Data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2009 also shows nearly as many kids get injured riding a bicycle as they do playing football — more than 200,000 children between 5 and 14 were treated in the hospital for bike-related injuries, compared to the 215,000 children with football injuries.
Experts attribute the leading cause of death among young athletes to sudden cardiac arrest, according to Boston Scientific’s Close the Gap initiative.
Data show most “young athletes who die suddenly” are basketball and football players — around 67 percent, the company said.
Where we are now
Recent research, particularly what’s been collected by concussion experts, suggest it isn’t all bad for football players.
Advancing helmet technology and rule changes are addressing some of the dangers associated with the sport, according to leading concussion researcher Dr. Kevin Guskiewic, the University of North Carolina’s Media Hub reported.
There’s still danger, Guskiewic said, but knowledge is power.
“The more everyone understands head trauma, the safer players will be,” he said, according to Media Hub.
This story was originally published September 25, 2019 at 5:36 PM.
