Georgia high school football player dies after sustaining a head injury in a game

BleedGopher

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per CNN:

A Georgia high school football player who came out of a game with an injury and then lost consciousness on the sideline has died, officials said.

Dylan Thomas, a 16-year-old junior for the Pike County Pirates, came out of a game in the third quarter Friday night with what his coach Brad Webber said was a leg injury. As he spoke with athletic trainers and the team doctor, Dylan became incoherent and then passed out, Webber said.

Steve Fry, a first responder and the mayor of Williamson, Georgia, said Dylan fell off the bench on the sideline. After the teen went down, he woke up, said "I can't feel my body," and then passed out again, Fry said.

Dylan, a linebacker, was transported to WellStar Spalding Regional Hospital and then airlifted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta. He was pronounced dead Sunday night from a head injury, Superintendent Michael Duncan said.

The home game between Pike and rival Peach County High School was played in Zebulon, about an hour's drive south of Atlanta. After Dylan was transported to the hospital, players and coaches from the two teams came together and knelt to pray for his recovery, Peach County High School said on Facebook.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/health/georgia-high-school-football-player-dies/index.html
 

Heartbreaking. It was bound to happen at some point or another. It won't be long before a player dies right on the field. When it happens on national TV in a major college or NFL game, I can't imagine major reforms wouldn't be forthcoming.

Prayers for this family...what a horrible tragedy.
 

I wonder if statistics are kept on the number of serious football related injuries and deaths over the years both high school and college football.

Ever since Coach Bob Deveney and trainer Boyd Epley pioneered the modern strength and conditioning program at Nebraska, the program has shifted to the high school level.

Every year since, every large high school football programs in the country are making young HS players bigger faster, and stronger.

Kids wanted to get those coveted football scholarships.

That is pretty scary when you have 16-year old youths with developing brains and body get hit repeatedly with the equivalence a car hitting you at 55 mph at that age.

Something has to give. My daughter refuses to have her three sons enroll in a football program. I don't blame her to a certain extend. The high schools even in Minnesota are getting very competitive.

It is no accident that some college players retire early due to repeated concussions they have incurred dating back to high school.

I don't know if the high school football governing bodies can regulate strength and conditioning at the HS level. There is too much money at stake involved in parts of the country. Some of the high schools in Texas have multi-million dollar stadiums.

Maybe the reason why the NDSU football program is so successful is because they most likely get kids that did not have those intense conditioning in high school. So, they are allowed develop while in college preserving any injuries to the brain.

There are some kids who were unranked coming out of HS that developed while in college. Landon Lechler went to a high school in ND. He became good enough to be playing for the Cincinnatti Bengals after college.
 
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There are around a dozen deaths in high school football every year with causes ranging from sickle cell, sudden cardiac death, second concussion syndrome. Tragic, but any sport has a small risk of death. Commotio cordis (baseball to chest causing irregular heart rhythm) from baseball, for example. Most activities have some risk. Inactivity has risks.
 



There are around a dozen deaths in high school football every year with causes ranging from sickle cell, sudden cardiac death, second concussion syndrome. Tragic, but any sport has a small risk of death. Commotio cordis (baseball to chest causing irregular heart rhythm) from baseball, for example. Most activities have some risk. Inactivity has risks.

Brutally insensitive ..... but true.
 

I’m not minimizing what happened to that boy - it’s terrible. I can try to understand and have sympathy for his family and friends obvious grief after a tragedy like that without saying things like oh, they need to shut football down. It’s a tragedy, yes. Many, many sports and activities have inherent risks if you really think about it. Things as simple and benign as individual sports like skiing, hiking, boating, swimming can end in disaster. None of this is to say there shouldn’t be tackling modifications, mandatory rehab time after diagnosed concussions, pre-activity physicals and testing for certain conditions to make sports safer. Life would be really vanilla if all one dwells on are risks.
 

That you can get hurt seriously in life doing other things, I get it. I played chicken as a kid and almost lost an eye doing stupid things thirteen year-olds do.

My grand kids are playing sports, but not just football yet. It is a choice my daughter made. That does not mean the kids may decide to play football later.

She is worried what constant repeated tackling can do to a young brain. Sports is a great avenue for the growth of kids in all aspect of life. I'd rather see my grand kids playing sports, going outdoors fishing and camping, than sit indoors and play video games.

BTW, slightly off topic, does anyone know what happened to Everson Griffin? Did they come out and say what the source of incoherent behavior was?
 

She is worried what constant repeated tackling can do to a young brain. Sports is a great avenue for the growth of kids in all aspect of life. I'd rather see my grand kids playing sports, going outdoors fishing and camping, than sit indoors and play video games.

And if they can play a game that very much resembles what we call football today, but has virtually eliminated all significant effects to the youth brain ... all the better!
 



per CNN:

A Georgia high school football player who came out of a game with an injury and then lost consciousness on the sideline has died, officials said.

Dylan Thomas, a 16-year-old junior for the Pike County Pirates, came out of a game in the third quarter Friday night with what his coach Brad Webber said was a leg injury. As he spoke with athletic trainers and the team doctor, Dylan became incoherent and then passed out, Webber said.

Steve Fry, a first responder and the mayor of Williamson, Georgia, said Dylan fell off the bench on the sideline. After the teen went down, he woke up, said "I can't feel my body," and then passed out again, Fry said.

Dylan, a linebacker, was transported to WellStar Spalding Regional Hospital and then airlifted to Grady Hospital in Atlanta. He was pronounced dead Sunday night from a head injury, Superintendent Michael Duncan said.

The home game between Pike and rival Peach County High School was played in Zebulon, about an hour's drive south of Atlanta. After Dylan was transported to the hospital, players and coaches from the two teams came together and knelt to pray for his recovery, Peach County High School said on Facebook.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/01/health/georgia-high-school-football-player-dies/index.html

First, condolences to the family, friends, and teammates of the deceased player.

Now incoherent babbling. Scary indeed. I "remember" getting my bell rung in High school. I ran down as a gunner on the opening kick-off and all I remember from the rest of the game is a team lining up to kick a field goal and they missed. My teammates came running toward the bench screaming for joy. I figured out that they were my teammates because I looked down at my jersey and it matched.

I went to a Gophers game the next day and one of the coaches saw me at said game. He asked me how was my leg? My puzzled response was that my leg was okay. The only thing that makes sense is that I either hurt my leg as well, or the hit radiated down my spine. My leg was sore, but I could walk fine.

Back then, most games there was an ambulance, one trainer per team, and the coaches of course.

Decades later, I still can't account for everything that happened during the game and shortly thereafter. I'm "okay", but looking back, it is scary to think about incidents that seem to be insignificant could be life threatening.

Not advocating for changes in the game, but it does make me wonder if more trainers/ medical personnel should be at games. I also wonder if players that come out of the game for any reason shouldn't be checked for head injuries. Maybe it would not have mattered. He may have had a clot that migrated.
 

Install grass fields.

The new turf speeds up the game by a full step at least.
 




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