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1000 SW Jackson
Suite 230 Coordinator: Executive Committee: Dennis Cooley, MD John Drees John Halbran Jim Keating Elena Nuss Cindy Samuelson |
Fall Sports Send 480,000 Kids to Emergency Rooms YearlySafe Kids Kansas offers fall sports safety tipsEvery year, more than 3.5 million children ages 14 and under suffer sports injuries serious enough to require medical treatment. At least 480,000 kids each year go to emergency rooms with injuries from fall sports. Tackles and collisions are not the only hazard. "Strains and repetitive-motion injuries account for nearly half of all sports injuries to students in sixth grade and above," says Jan Stegelman, Safe Kids Kansas coordinator. Immature bones, insufficient rest after an injury and poor conditioning contribute to these injuries. "Parents and coaches need to make sure kids start the season with a physical checkup and do their warm-ups prior to practice or competition." Kids are more likely to be injured in a practice or pickup game than in organized competition. "If protective gear is required for a game, it is important for practice too," says Stegelman. "Kids should warm up properly and stay hydrated for practice just as they would for a game." In 2003, emergency rooms treated more than 200,000 children ages 5 to 14 who were injured playing basketball; nearly 186,000 injured playing football; more than 75,000 injured playing soccer; and nearly 22,000 injured doing gymnastics. These figures do not reflect injuries treated in sports medicine clinics and other non-hospital settings - by some estimates, half of all sports injuries. In a 2000 survey conducted by Safe Kids Worldwide (formerly the National SAFE KIDS Campaign), 30 percent of parents said their child had been injured at least once while playing a team sport, 15 percent said their child had been injured more than once, and about 7 percent said their child suffered a serious injury. Safe Kids Kansas recommends these precautions for kids playing or practicing any individual or team sport: For more information about sports safety, visit www.safekids.org. Safe Kids Kansas, Inc. is a nonprofit Coalition of 67 statewide organizations and businesses dedicated to preventing unintentional injuries to Kansas children ages 0-14. Local coalitions and chapters are located in Allen, Anderson, Atchison, Clay, Dickinson, Doniphan, Douglas, Ford, Franklin, Geary, Jackson, Jefferson, Johnson, Leavenworth, Marion, Meade, Montgomery, Nemaha, Osage, Pottawatomie, Republic, Rice, Saline, Smith, Shawnee, Wabaunsee, Wilson and Woodson Counties, as well as the cities of Chanute, Leavenworth, Manhattan, Norton, Pittsburg, the Wichita Area and the Metro Kansas City Area. Safe Kids Kansas a member of Safe Kids Worldwide, a global network of organizations whose mission is to prevent accidental childhood injury. |
