(LEX 18) — The death of a high school athlete in Pulaski County is highlighting the risk associated with football.
Pulaski County High School Junior Andrew Dodson died Monday morning after being injured during a spring football practice game Friday.
His family’s grief has been comforted by knowing Andrew is an a better place, pastor Brandon Carrier told LEX 18.
“They just want to emphasize it was just a fre-, it was a routine play, it wasn’t anybody’s fault,” Carrier said. “It was just a freak accident.”
Carrier said it was a simple, clean tackle, adding Dodson suffered blunt force trauma when his head hit the turf.
Several high school football players a year experience devastating head injuries or death across the country, according Dr. Francis Farhadi, a neurosurgeon and associate professor at the University of Kentucky.
“It’s not as rare as it should be,” Farhadi said. “I think the mistaken impression young kids don’t hit hard enough to cause these types of injuries, that’s probably not true.”
He’s spent years near the sideline for Ohio State Football games, monitoring for potential spinal cord injuries and concussions.
Farhadi, who did not treat Dodson, shared how it’s possible a clean hit can come before a player’s death.
“It’s unlikely that a single hit is doing this, the general feeling is it’s a second impact, maybe even multiple impacts over time that go unrecognized,” Farhadi.
Moving forward, he said it’s important to look for ways to prevent serious injuries and deaths as the result of head injuries at football games. It’s especially important he says at the high school level, where he says they’re a higher frequency compared to college and the NFL of serious injury and deaths.
