BRAIN INJURIES IN SPORTS

Tonight at 8:00 pm the CNN network will be premiering a show called "Dr. Sanjay Gupta Reports: Big Hits, Broken Dreams". Dr Sanjay has been following the 2011 season of a North Carolina high school football team and will take a closer look at the health and safety issues on the playing field. I just read an article about a 17 year old high school student. His is name is Nathan Stiles he is a straight-A senior who is the star running back at his high school. It just turned out that his final game of his senior year would be  the last one he plays in his life. He took at hard hit to the head during the game that killed him. He died of second-impact syndrome, when a player is hit again before the brain has had a chance to heal for an initial concussion. Earlier he was complaining of head aches that lead him to go to the doctor. He had a CT scan and was told to sit out for 3 weeks. When they returned to the doctors office for the final check up Connie (Nathan's mom) remembers her sun asking "Now,Mom, are you OK with this?" She didn't want him to get back on the field but it was harder for her to say no. Many organizations are working hard to prevent tragedies like this happen. They are working to make rules on injuries in sports more strict and making it harder for doctors to clear athletes to play who had been injured. Rules of games have changed such as in football and lacrosse, hits above the neck are illegal. Many doctors are looking into the brain injuries and are looking for ways to find warnings to save lives before it is too late.