By Aria Mildon, Reporter
After receiving a hit to the chin in eighth grade, I was carted to the emergency room. I remember that the first thing they did was check for concussions. Luckily I was cleared, but that isn’t the reality for many young athletes who get checked by a doctor after a head injury.
In the U.S. alone, athletes get about 300,000 concussions a year, many of which go undetected and untreated. Common indications of a concussion are mood changes and mood irritability and tiredness.
Since that describes most teenagers, concussions are often missed. The magnitude of concussions that athletes get can be shown through our girls basketball team.
Three athletes throughout the league have obtained a concussion that rendered them unable to participate in games and practices. The three players from Cascade Christian, Charles Wright and Vashon Island have been benched at various points during the season due to a concussion that occurred playing basketball.
And this doesn’t include any other sports where concussions are commonplace as well.
Other students at our high school have also received concussions while playing sports. For example, senior Maddy Dumais has had three concussions.
“[A doctor] decided I had a concussion, and I had a headache for two weeks…. I wasn’t able to do zumba in Spanish [class], and I spent pretty much all of my Spanish classes sitting in the commons,” senior Maddy Dumais said. Concussions took her out from more than just sports; it impacted her education.
It’s a common misconception that concussions are just an inconvenience that simply take you out of the game for a couple weeks. The harsh truth is that recovery takes longer than that.
“Concussion recovery can take three to 18 months to fully recover,” local EMT Ken Jackson said.
Even after students are cleared to play, they are not fully recovered. Concussions can create scar tissue as they heal, and if your brain is still developing, the brain can grow around the scar tissue and cause problems for you in the future.
Concussions don’t just take you out of the game — they can lead to long-term issues, including loss of memory, mood swings and confusion.
According to local EMTs, the reality is that most of us have had a concussion, even if we didn’t realize it. Some students choose to hide a present concussion, or the amount of concussions that they have experienced in order to stay in the game. This can lead to an injury even more serious than a concussion.
Most sports offered at the school carry a serious concussion risk. Football and wrestling are obviously large contributors, but reports of others are present as well.
“I have gotten a concussion from heading the ball,” senior Aimee Olson said, referring to soccer.
Girls lacrosse has a risk for concussion, but they have rules meant to protect players.
“If you get your stick in another girl’s headspace, you are out of the game for two minutes,” senior Eva Anderson said.
Still, most sports at the school don’t offer explicit rules to protect players against a concussion, despite it being one of the most prevalent and dangerous injuries in sports.