Articles Posted in Injuries to Minors

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Earlier this month New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed wide-ranging legislation designed to protect student-athletes in his state. As reported by the website Safe Kids New Jersey, the bill will require the state’s Department of Education “to develop an interscholastic athletic head injury safety training program to be completed by school physicians, coaches and athletic trainers” in both public and private schools.

The website goes on to note that the New Jersey program will include teaching school personnel how to recognize “symptoms of head and neck injuries,” how to judge when an athlete should be allowed to return to the field and when someone requires further treatment, including hospitalization. As the organization notes, “currently, there is no uniform method of handling suspected concussions in interscholastic sports.”

As I have noted in previous posts looking at both football and hockey, concern over concussions and other traumatic brain injuries at all levels of competition is rising here in Oregon and nationwide. Parents as well as coaches and trainers are becoming more and more aware of the dangers improperly diagnosed or treated head injuries can pose, especially to younger athletes. Below you’ll find a link to an especially helpful checklist of questions every parent should know to ask when talking to a doctor treating a child for a suspected head injury (the list is compiled by the federal government’s National Institutes of Health).

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Back in August I wrote about the dangers posed to children by ATVs, and the effort in Massachusetts to cut the number of deaths and injuries to young riders through a new law banning ATV use by kids 14 and younger. Now we have even more evidence of the need for such laws, and the need for accountability among ATV manufacturers.

According to a recent article in the trade publication The Safety Record, a new study conducted by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Injury Research and Policy looks at ATV-related hospitalizations and injuries to children between 1997 and 2006. The study found a huge spike in both categories among children during that time period. The numbers are particularly noteworthy because, as The Safety Record notes, it was during this time that a 10-year consent agreement between the Consumer Product Safety Commission and ATV manufacturers expired. Under that agreement, reached in 1988, the manufacturers offered “free training for riders, warning labels, a public education campaign and a ban on three-wheeled ATVs,” the publication notes. Once the agreement expired some manufacturers continued to honor it voluntarily, but others did not.

During the 1997-2006 period, the study found, ATV-related injuries to children (defined as 17 years old or younger) increased by 150 percent overall. Some sub-groups showed even more alarming jumps: notably 15-17 year old boys, among whom injuries increased by 260 percent. “All-Terrain vehicles are inherently dangerous to children,” the report quotes Dr. Stephen Bowman, a Johns Hopkins professor and the study’s lead author, saying.

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A pick-up truck running a stop sign caused an Oregon two-car crash that left one dead and ten injured, according to a report at MyCentralOregon.com. The crash took place on Highway 361 near Culver, in Central Oregon and was serious enough to require mobilizing troopers from two separate OSP barracks as well as the Jefferson County Sheriff’s office along with emergency medical personnel from both Jefferson County and Warm Springs.

According to the website, the accident took place when a pick-up driven by 28-year-old Andrea Orozco of Madras ran a stop sign and collided with a Toyota driven by Linda Ross, 61, of Metolius. The site reports: “The impact caused the Toyota to travel west where it came to rest off the highway. (Orozco’s) Ford Expedition traveled travelled northwest and overturned before coming to rest on its side.”

A passenger in Ross’ Toyota died from injuries sustained in the Oregon car crash several hours after the accident, while Ross herself was hospitalized with what the website report describes as “serious injuries”. Orozco was carrying eight passengers – two adults and six children ages 2 to 14. She and all of her passengers were transported to area hospitals with what were also described as “serious injuries”.

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A few days ago I wrote about new data showing a worrisome rise in traffic accidents leading to Oregon pedestrian deaths. In the most tragic illustration possible of what seems to be a trend, we now have word of the death of a toddler in who was in a stroller as he and his father crossed the street at what TV station KGW describes as “a clearly marked crosswalk.”

According to a detailed account in The Oregonian, the accident took place last Monday in North Portland. The 75-year-old driver of the car that struck and killed 22-month-old Seamus DuBarry, his father and another man told police that he panicked and, in the process, mistook the gas pedal for the brake. The newspaper reports that the elder DuBarry and his small son “were flipped onto the car’s hood and carried for nearly 100 feet. The car slammed into a utility pole and stopped.” Another Oregon pedestrian, Da-Mon McDonald, was left in the middle of the road. Both of the adults suffered what the paper describes as minor injuries in the crash. The child, however, died a short while later at a nearby hospital after surgical attempts to save him failed.

Though police opted not to issue any citations in the incident, McDonald was quoted by The Oregonian saying that the driver “owes that family and that little boy, big time.” According to the paper the accident remains under investigation. Police expect to forward a report on the incident to the Multnomah County DA soon.

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As the nation settles in for another football-filled fall weekend many of the sport’s fans are focusing on new enforcement measures announced by the NFL in the last few days. The league wants to contain the damage being caused by violent, potentially catastrophic, hits. As has been reported just about everywhere, an unusually large number of stomach-churning plays last week led the league to issue fines, threaten suspensions and warn players that enforcement of the sport’s existing rules is going to be tougher from now on.

But as a pair of articles published at opposite ends of the country this week remind us, the dangers of traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, concussions or other serious injuries faced by high school, middle school and youth players are, in some ways, far greater than those confronting the highly-trained, closely monitored athletes of the NFL.

In a wide-ranging article published yesterday, the Los Angeles Times noted that, in Southern California, no baseline set of standards exists for medical care at high school football games. The article dramatically contrasts the situation at private schools that can afford to have a staff of as many as four athletic trainers and a doctor roaming the sidelines to that of poor public schools that make due with an ambulance parked at one end of the field. Such a situation, the paper notes, offers reassurance in the event of a catastrophic brain or spinal cord injury, but does little or nothing for players who suffer milder, harder to diagnose – and far more common – injuries, such as concussions.

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After a seven-year investigation the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced this week that the Graco corporation has agreed to recall an estimated two million strollers manufactured prior to 2007, according to a report in today’s New York Times.

According to the newspaper, the CPSC became concerned that the strollers pose a risk of injuries to children by strangulation, particularly for children under the age of one, because “when left unharnessed, they can crawl through the opening between the seat and stroller tray and become trapped,” the paper reported. In all, four children’s deaths have been linked to the faulty strollers, along with five other incidents in which children were injured after becoming trapped in the strollers. The CPSC, according to the Times, has been investigating the product since the first report of a child’s death in 2003.

Graco is offering customers kits that will allow them to repair the strollers. The company agreed to the voluntary recall at this time “because many more parents were buying and selling secondhand strollers, probably because of the prolonged economic malaise,” the newspaper reported.

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An alleged hazing incident involving football players at a Florida high school has rapidly escalated into mutual recriminations between the alleged victim’s parents on the one hand, and school officials and their attorney on the other. The parents are now threatening to sue the school, while a former attorney for the school district has criticized his successor’s handling of the case. Here in Oregon, we can see the case as an example of the sort of behavior schools, teachers and coaches need to be on the lookout for. Oregon bullying can lead to Oregon child injuries. When there is a danger of that happening, parents need to be vigilant, and assure that educators are doing their jobs.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the parents allege that their 15-year-old son was “beaten, choked unconscious and thrown in a garbage can.” Their attorney – who until recently was the school district’s chief counsel – told reporters he believes the school district downplayed the incident because the high school athletes involved are among the top-rated football players in the state. He also criticized the current attorney for the school district for comparing the accused players to the Duke University lacrosse players who were falsely accused of rape several years ago.

The school, for its part, says the family has not cooperated with its investigation, and claims the parents have not produced medical records to substantiate their allegations. The parents, in turn, allege that by publicizing the case the school has violated their son’s privacy.

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After a spring and summer spent, in part, answering claims that the league may not take brain and spinal cord injuries seriously enough, NFL officials cannot have been pleased that the new season’s first week brought all of these questions back into play. During last Sunday’s season opener, as the New York Times reports, Philadelphia Eagles linebacker Stewart Bradley lay motionless on the field for several minutes. Though taken off the field for medical reasons he returned to the game, the paper reports, “less than four minutes later.” At halftime team doctors diagnosed him with a concussion.

As the Times notes, however, the real question is what example all of this is setting for younger players. NFL teams are well-positioned to offer their players immediate and on-going medical care. At the high school level, in particular, that is far less likely to be the case. As the Times notes, “only 42 percent of high schools in the United States have access to a certified athletic trainer, let alone a physician.”

The danger is that youngsters inspired by dreams of NFL glory are taking and giving sharper hits than they should, and that many schools are ill-equipped to deal with the consequences.

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The Oregonian reports that the 6-year-old survivor of a Labor Day weekend Oregon car crash is still hospitalized in serious condition, even as the operator of the car that caused the accident has been charged with a series of vehicular offenses by the district attorney in Klamath Falls.

The boy was seriously injured, and his great-grandparents killed, when 22-year-old Carrie Ames allegedly slammed into them in a head-on Oregon car crash. Ames and an 18-year old passenger in her car suffered only minor injuries.

According to The Oregonian, Ames has been charged “with two counts of first-degree manslaughter, driving under the influence of intoxicants, second-degree assault in connection with the 6-year-old’s injuries, and third-degree assault in connection with injuries “ to the teenage passenger in her own car.

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Have you ever been to a carnival, or even a child’s birthday party and wondered just how safe those moonwalks, bouncy castles and other portable ‘rides’ are? According to a recent article in the Wichita Eagle, a Kansas court case looks set to bring those issues into focus.

According to the newspaper, the civil lawsuit was filed last month by the parents of a five-year-old boy who died after being thrown from an inflatable ride called King of the Hill. The newspaper describes this as being “designed like a large mattress – flat except for a bulge in the middle – and… surrounded by a 2-foot-high inflatable barrier.” Parents were allegedly told to place a child in the center of the ‘mattress’ and then to jump up and down themselves on the inflatable’s sides, causing the child to fly into the air. Having done this a few days earlier for the boy’s birthday party the five-year-old’s family returned to the same amusement park a few days later, using free passes they had received during the birthday celebration. On this second visit, however, the child was launched over the inflatable barrier. He landed head-first on the facility’s concrete floor, resulting in his death.

The parents also charge that the ride was “underinflated and unsupervised” and that the operator ignored the manufacturer’s recommendation that the ride was for children ages 8 and up.

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