Highlighting: Danielle Techner

Hey guys! Sorry I've been gone for a bit again. The holidays are so crazy! Anyways.. I found a great article on a fellow female athletic trainer, Danille Techner. She's the athletic trainer and sports medicine teacher at San Benito High School. Like many of us, she is the only athletic trainer at her school. She deals with every single sport and every single athlete every single day. She has to be everywhere at once. Many of us can relate to Techner with the multiple sports, hundreds of athletes, and several responsibilities. She also talks about how staying calm is key when it comes to injury, especially serious ones like a broken leg. I can definitely relate to this. My first month being an athletic trainer all alone without any help, I had a football player break his leg right in front of me and I can still hear the break to this day, like she can. I had to stay calm so I could calm down the athlete and get everyone where they needed to be. My friend even told me that I acted like those people in the CPR vidoes when they say to make sure you designate roles well by pointing and using the person's name to tell them what to do. Apparently I pointed at my friend and said "carrie! Call 9-1-1" and pointed to my coach and said "you! Tell the parents to stay back!" I had no clue I had done that. I guess it's instinct now! I'm sure every single one of you had had an instance where you had to stay calm for the sake of the athlete and everyone around you. If you've experienced something like this, leave a comment! Let me and everyone else know how you kept calm in a stressful situation. And below is Danielle's story!

http://m.sanbenitocountytoday.com/sports/profiles-techner-does-it-all-as-athletic-trainer/article_526f1df4-a45a-11e5-b59a-9fb26801b001.html?mode=jqm

Highlighting: Elizabeth Nottingham

So I found this great article on Elizabeth Nottingham.  She is the athletic trainer at South Rowan High School in China Grove, NC.  Elizabeth is a 2006 alumna of South Rowan and obviously has a lot invested into the school.  This past summer, she saved a life, as many of us do, of a boy's soccer player.  In late August, she had to do CPR on one of the visiting players.  Even though she was calm and collected, like we are taught to be in traumatic situations, she admits that she was a mess after.  She also says that an AED on hand would have been a benefit.  She only was able to do CPR without an AED with help from 2 other people until EMS arrived.  Though the school had two AEDs, they was not readily accessible and she had to rely on CPR only.  One was at the front of the school and the other usually travels with teams.  So I guess one of the AEDs was gone, and the other was too far away.  Thankfully, this year, the schools in the district have been granted an extra AED that the ATCs can carry around with them.  This boy wound up being ok in the end, but Nottingham was questioning what would have happened if he wasn't ok, or if it would have been an even better outcome if she had an AED on hand.  Nottingham is very happy that the boy is doing well.  After the soccer game, the two schools played each other in football.  The soccer players from both teams came together that night for the player that was saved by Nottingham.  It was a great gesture by the teams to unite for the boy.

How do you all feel about your accessability to AEDs?  I know with both jobs I have had, I have been able to carry an AED with me.  I have never had to use it (thank goodness), but at least I know it's there with me.  Unfortunately for Nottingham, her's was not accessible.  I feel like that's a key tool that an ATC needs to have in traumatic events.  I'm glad she is going to have one readily accessible to her now.  It's tough thinking about not having something like that available to you.  I couldn't imagine all of the catastrophes that could be avoided with just one simple tool.

http://www.salisburypost.com/2015/11/27/saving-a-life-athletic-trainer-keeps-south-rowan-high-school-players-safe/

High School Football - Heavy Topic

Football related injuries are very common in the fall.  Athletic trainers deal with sprained ankles to concussions to broken bones.  It’s a lot to handle if you are an athletic trainer at a high school with 300+ athletes to deal with.  I know when I was in the high school setting, I was always loaded up with football injuries along with boys’ and girls’ soccer, volleyball, cross country, and field hockey injuries – and that was just the athletes in season in the fall.  I was also dealing with wrestling, boys’ and girls’ basketball, boys’ and girls’ lacrosse, and many other sports.  It was overwhelming, especially being the only athletic trainer in the school.  If you are the only ATC at your school, you knew what I dealt with.  Concussions were the most prevalent they had ever been, and they were very tedious to rehab back.  But what if you were at a school where catastrophic injuries were prevalent?  There have been so many deaths that I have been reading about in high school football this season - 13 totaled so far. I would like to discuss some of these catasrophic injuries.  I know it's a heavy subject, but it needs to be addressed.

-On July 7th, 2015, Collin Kelly of Indiana died after passing out from heat stroke at preseason practice.

-On September 4^th, 2015, Tyrell Cameron of Louisiana died returning a punt in his high school football game.  On September 19h, 2015, Ben Hamm of Oklahoma died from an injury he had suffered in a football game a week prior.

-On September 26^th, 2015, Evan Murry of New Jersey died after getting hit in the back during a football game.

-On October 23^rd, 2015, Andre Smith of Chigaco died after suffering a hit to the head in his high school football game the day before.

These deaths make all of us in the profession feel for the athletic trainer that has to deal with these catastrophic injuries.  It is sad to learn, though, that in the incidence of all of these untimely deaths, not all schools had athletic trainers.  It makes one think.. would the other injuries have been handled differently if there were athletic trainers on the sideline?  Especially when it came to the preseason heat related injuries. If there was a liscensed athletic trainer at practice, they would have been able to detect the heat indexes at practice and been able to stop activity.  There should not have been one death from heat illness.  That is very preventable.  However, when it comes to being hit in the head, no athlete should die from that either.  I believe, if there was an athletic trainer at these schools, the hit to the head deaths would have never happened.  Usually when someone has a catastrophic blow to the head, it is resulted from a previous hit to the head that was not healed.  This is called Second Impact Syndrome.  If there was an athletic trainer at these schools, they would have been able to recognize the initial hit to the head and the second hit would have never happened.

It is so unfortunate that there are many schools without athletic trainers that could prevent catastrophic injuries like the ones above.  There are only 37% of secondary schools that have athletic trainers.  Think of how many of these deaths and other injuries could be assessed, rehabilitated, and even prevented if the number of athletic trainers in high schools increased.  We, as an athletic training community, mourn these young adults, even if they are not our own athletes.  It is a sad statistic, and hopefully one day the school districts will realize how valuable we are.

Please read the following article for more information.

 http://www.people.com/article/high-school-football-deaths-experts-reasons-why-help