Sports 'n' Stuff (No politics/Covid discussion)

Very unusual incident at the pro level:

news.yahoo.com/bills-hamlin-collapses-field-gets-022157802.html

A 24 year old elite secondary player for the Bills collapsed after a hard chest hit, and is in critical condition at a local hospital.

It's speculated that the hit caused his heart to start behaving erratically; CPR was administered on the field.

Not unprecedented in any sport at any level - the heart is a tough but complex device which doesn't appreciate being subjected to blunt force - but not something seen in the NFL previously.

With the playoffs about to begin, it'll be interesting to see what impact this has on the remainder of the season - the game itself was indefinitely postponed.

There has been a rising chorus in support of the return to soft helmets, and I imagine this may now be fast-tracked among other changes.

It'll be known in the next few days if the young man will recover, and there's been an outpouring of sympathy and support for him.

Apart from the well-wishes of millions that this young man recover, this incident, and the cancellation of the game in which it occurred, are raising a number of questions about the remaining NFL season:

1) Will the game be resumed/replayed/continued?

2) If the game IS resumed/replayed/continued, will it begin at the time, field position and score at which the game was suspended?

3) If the game is NOT replayed, how will the contest be accounted for - perhaps as a tie?

4) Will a rule or rules emerge for dealing with this extraordinary situation going forward should it potentially recur?

5) Will the Bills - favorites to appear in and possibly win the Super Bowl - continue playing the remainder of the season?

6) Will the NFL end the season with no more games to be played?

It's a crazy situation, but it does now look like the game will NOT be resumed/replayed, at least this week.

If never played, this means the Bills and Bengals would both finish the season a game shy IF all agree to this.

But one of many problems is that this provides an unfair advantage to both teams, as less wear and tear on them than other teams they'll be facing going forward - they'd both be getting TWO bye weeks.

All kinds of speculation about going forward & how; luckily all teams affected were already in the playoffs.

Maybe a coin flip or two can decide outstanding issues, but the pro football world is DEEPLY shaken.

My comments weren't about politics or Covid and were directly related to the discussion of Hamlin being in hospital.

There is a force of Federal Agents surrounding the hospital. 

I even took the time to post any Covid related stuff in the Covid thread and not here.

How is that disruptive? 

BTW, can you tell Ditch I sent him a PM last week? 

He still hasn't read it. 

Reports are coming in that Hamlin is doing a bit better, but still critical.

He may have been without oxygen on the field for as much as 9 minutes however, so this is concerning.

As to the impact of the game being stopped on the season going forward, there's a rising chorus saying the game needs to be finished.

I agree with this as the only reasonable course.

Allowing players on two teams to gain the extraordinary advantage of not having to play more than a few minutes of a game while other teams played full games - some into overtime - is simply not fair to vast majority of franchises.

Contradictory reports often emerge in situations where privacy concerns prevent direct communication between medical or legal authorities and the public.

So, my logic driven brain started wondering how common Commotio Cordis is (I got this from the Commotio Cordis Wiki page):


From 1996 to spring 2007, the USA National Commotio Cordis Registry had 188 cases recorded, with about half occurring during organized sports

Almost all (96%) of the victims were male, the mean age of the victims during that period was 14.7 years, and fewer than one in five survived the incident.[5]

Baseball is the most common sport in which commotio cordis occurs, particularly among teenage boys playing the positions of pitcher, catcher or batter.[1] Commotio cordis may occur secondarily in other sports via impacts to the chest by elbows or helmets.

Also:

Children are especially vulnerable, possibly due to the mechanical properties of their thoracic skeleton.

So, that's only 188 recorded cases in 11 years, or about 17 cases a year (I'm assuming it's within the US) with about half being from ALL organized sports (from highschool to professional sports) and teenage boys are the highest risk with risk being minimal to adults.

From what the Wiki pages describes, it makes it sound like it takes a sharp, concentrated impact (via elbows or helmets) to the chest area most of the time for this condition to occur. 

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There's a link on the NIH website (we can trust the NIH to NOT publish misinformation, is that correct?   ) that states this:

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10392228/

Commotio cordis due to blunt trauma to the precordium is a rare cause of death in young athletes, occurring less frequently than all of the other athletics-related deaths. Several measures, such as the use of safety baseballs and the use of chest protectors, can help protect young athletes from commotio cordis. In general, sudden cardiac death in athletes is receiving increasing attention from the public as a result of recent deaths of high-profile athletes. Sudden cardiac death, however, is rare, with an estimated 1 out of 200,000 high school athletes at risk each year. However, the personal, physiological, and cardiovascular benefits of athletics far outweigh the risks. Therefore, the message to parents is to allow their children to participate in athletics because the benefits far outweigh the risks.

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So Commotio Cardio affects about 1 out of 200,000 high school students (and again, it is far more rare in adults as the Wiki page states).


So now that we know that the risk of Commotio Cordis is actually extremely rare, and even more rare in adults it might make sense to consider which sort of injuries would be more common than the "1 in 200,000 for teenage boys" and even MORE rare in young adults that might cause this sort of injury.


And of course, why there are Federal Agents around the hospital that Hanlin is in....and why the media is worked into such a frenzy against misinformation about Hanlan's case? 

Weird indeed. 

But logic persists even if sanity doesn't.