Is one child’s injury enough reason to ban a game? And are any PE games completely safe from chance of injury?
Someone sent the AJC a tweet asking that we open up the story about the Gwinnett family seeking to stop a PE game they deemed dangerous for reader discussion. I didn’t post on it yesterday when I first read the piece because it wasn’t clear to me what exactly happened.
I don’t know if this particular game is any more dangerous to children than other playground games, as kids get hurt in tag and soccer as well. I know that many of you are going to argue that this is helicopter parenting, but I can understand the frustration of parents whose child has had his summer snatched away by a gym class injury.
But if one child’s bad experience could squelch a sport, schools would virtually have to ban almost everything except catch with a Nerf ball.
Here is the AJC story:
Tyler Strickland is spending the sweltering days of July wrapped in a sling from his shoulder to his wrist, unable to swim, cut his food or bang out a tune on his electric guitar.
The wiry 14-year-old, who has to take pills to manage pain from a sports injury, says that he hurt his shoulder during a Gwinnett County Schools physical education class playing a game his parents want to see banned.
The Twin Rivers Middle School student said he and classmates were asked to participate in a souped-up version of tee ball for teens. They swung a wooden bat at a volleyball perched on a traffic cone during gym class.
His parents say that the force of the bat against the ball caused their son to experience debilitating shoulder pain that later required surgery. According to medical records, the student suffered two tendon tears and a partially dislocated shoulder. Three staples were placed in his arm to reattach his bicep muscles.
“I believe it was an idiotic thing to ask kids to do,” said the teen’s stepfather, Ken Gittens, a veteran Gwinnett firefighter. “For any action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It would be just common sense that if you whack a volleyball as hard as you can, the bat is going to bounce back and you are probably going to get hurt. Someone who has gone to college should know better.”
Gwinnett school system risk management officials have no record of the April incident.
However, Strickland’s mother, Jill Gittens, kept a copy of the e-mail she sent on June 29 alerting school officials that her son required medical rehabilitation for a shoulder injury that occurred at the gym and then later surgery after the source of the pain was diagnosed. An accident investigation was not found among four reports of other student injuries in gym class at Twin Rivers in 2009 and 2010.
Gwinnett school officials did not respond Tuesday to a list of questions on the game or whether there have been similar incidents.
Gittens said she wants the game stopped so that other students don’t get hurt. The batting exercise is usually performed with a partially deflated volleyball to help players improve their swings.
An official with the National Association for Sport and Physical Education said the game isn’t listed among dangerous activities the group bans, such as dodgeball, but it isn’t one they’d endorse, either.
“Personally, I would probably never do that,” said Dennis Docheff, president-elect of NASPE and a University of Central Missouri professor. “I don’t think it’s an inappropriate practice for the sake of swinging a bat at a ball. But at the middle school level, I think they are ready to hit a moving target.”
Some students may be more predisposed to this kind of injury, said Dr. Jon Hyman. “If a child is loose jointed they are going to be at a high risk to have a shoulder slip out of socket,” Hyman said.
Tyler, who is more artistic than athletic, has been seeing doctors since April.
“I was in a lot of pain,” he said. “Even if I didn’t do anything, my shoulder would hurt. I still am in pain.”
The teen agreed to surgery in late June after weeks of being unable to close a door or pick up his backpack without his right shoulder throbbing. Dr. Charles Morris of Lawrenceville Resurgens Orthopedics performed the procedure that repaired the tendon tear and detached bicep muscles.
Is one child’s injury enough to ban a gym game?
“I’m not sure I’d indict the act,” said Dr. Scott Gillogly of Atlanta Sports Medicine & Orthopaedic Center, head team physician for the Falcons and Atlanta Thrashers. “This can happen in any sport. It can happen goofing around. You can recover pretty darn well.”
As Tyler recovers, he has to sleep sitting up. His mobility is limited and so is his summer fun.
“I have to help him wash his hair and get dressed,” Jill Gittens said. “Tyler has had to endure something he should not have had to endure at 14 years of age. He lost out on summer.”
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113 comments Add your comment
AtlantaNative62
July 22nd, 2010
12:48 am
This is fun!!! – Are you not also “hiding behind the keyboard” with you comments? Seems quite hypocritical to me.
Really??
July 22nd, 2010
12:50 am
If I were Tyler, I would be suing my mother for telling a reporter that she had to help me bathe and get dressed.
I was a tom boy in the 70’s when we skateboarded on plywood covered ditches, rode our bikes without helmets, played unsupervised dodgeball in public school in second grade, and our parents were ok with all of it.
I had a great childhood!
What is wrong with you people?
Steve
July 22nd, 2010
1:06 am
Ok. When I first read the headline I thought the parents should be caned and flogged. After reading what the sport was, I will say that while I think it’s stupid to start banning sports .. the teachers should have a little more common sense.
Ditto to what Enough! said earlier.
I am thoroughly against the banning of activities in PE classes, but this game is just pure stupid. for those of you whining that the kid should not have gotten hurt, go out and try it yourself. With arms extended swinging with force, hitting an object with that sort of resistance over area can easily lead to injuries. You might not think so, but there is a reason that baseball is played with a ball that size and that tightly constructed. If you dont have the correct gear, try this instead .. take a broom(which almost everyone has) and hit soemthing liek a soccer ball with it .. with arms fully extended, locked, and be sure to follow thru properly. The resulting force on your wrists will probably cause them to buckle (if the broom doesn’t break). If not then the force will be applied thru the arm to the elbow, and then to the shoulder if the elbow doesn’t give.
The force is much more than most of you realize. It is easily enough force to cause physical damage to the shoulder, which is a very intricate collection of moving parts. It is not even remotely similar to hitting a baseball or a tennis ball. Anyone who thinks this is an intelligent game to be ‘forced’ to participate in really hasn’t tried it. The kid probalby got hurt because he actually tried to hit the ball too hard, whereas most of these posters fat, overweight little runts and prima-donnas probably just bunt the ball so they don’t really have to participate.
The problem here is that most PE teachers do not actually try to come up with activities that are low risk, high participation, and decent physical reward. This was a lazy invention that was not thought out well from a physics perspective.
Grenjeep
July 22nd, 2010
1:06 am
Oh yea……..with parents like these……….let’s do away with using chalk in classrooms………I’m sure there’s a parent out there that will complain of “screach marks” hurting their kids ears………….
Teacher
July 22nd, 2010
1:20 am
Any time a child is injured at school you have to take a look at how things could have been done differently. That being said, these are children we are talking about, and accidents do happen. Often times, there is really nothing that could have prevented the injury. I once had a student fall off the monkey bars and break an arm. We had only been on the playground for a few short minutes and the child was using the equipment properly. I hated seeing a child go through that, but it was just something that happened.
I did feel badly for this family until the end of the article when they mentioned that no 14-year-old should have to go through this and that he missed out on summer. It’s a bummer for sure and definitely no fun. This is part of life. We all go through times in our lives that try us. When I was diagnosed with cancer at 26 I felt like I was missing out on a lot, too. Today I’m a better person for it.
Tender Baby
July 22nd, 2010
1:34 am
Well said Teacher. I hope you are doing well.
Fellow Parent
July 22nd, 2010
3:26 am
As I sit here and read the comments I can’t help but laugh. I am a parent of a 14 yo girl who also took PE and was asked to do activities she has never done. She too is artistic but also athletic. She was smacked in the face with a flying soccer ball from a fellow student. She also broke a finger doing another sport which prevented her from being “artistic”. Never in my wildest dream would I or could I ask the school to ban an activity. Accident’s happen, kids will get hurt, they will break bones and heal. That is what life is all about. It’s my job as her parent to teach her how to duck next time that ball comes flying at her face, be careful on this certain sport so you don’t break your finger again. Kids will be kids and they will get hurt. I understand trying to raise awareness but to try and take activities away from other kids will not help your child if he comes across another activity and fails at it. Teaching him to BAN something because he failed at it will only hinder him in his furture accomplishment or it can set forth teaching him to “GIVE UP” if you can’t handle an activity.
Mike Brady
July 22nd, 2010
5:37 am
As a parent, I can understand the impulse to want to protect one’s child, but accidents can and do happen. My eldest step-daughter Marcia was once hit right in the nose by an errant football carelessly tossed by one of her step-brothers and we were all worried that her dream of becoming a teen model was over. Fortunately, she healed just fine and later went on to meet a big pop star who sang at her school’s prom. Everything works out if you let it.
Hmmmm
July 22nd, 2010
7:34 am
For the one poster who suggested the child in question take up less dangerous activities, including cheerleading, fyi….competitive cheerleading has one of the highest injury rates around. Better not do that.
ScienceTeacher671
July 22nd, 2010
7:40 am
The biggest concern I have is why an accident report wasn’t filed. That should have happened if the accident occured at school.
I got hit in the face by a baseball once, while watching one of my kids play little league. Actually, obviously I was talking too much and watching too little, or I’d have seen it coming.
Ole Guy
July 22nd, 2010
8:00 am
In 10th grade pe, I busted my foot taking a rebound under the hoop. The next morning, following the acquisition of a cast the previous evening, I inquired as to the feasability of my staying home the next day…inasmuch as I was experiencing “extreme difficulty” and in need of “assistance” (which, of course, I didn’t want to impose upon my classmates). My Dad’s reply: GET YOUR ARS UP AND OUTTA HERE!
Dr NO
July 22nd, 2010
8:12 am
Sounds like this kid is a big a panzy crybaby as his parent are.
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