Fourth high school football death puts spotlight on safety standards
Sports
Fourth high school football death puts spotlight on safety standards
A Seattle area high school football player injured in a game on Friday died at a hospital Monday, the latest in a spate of fatalities among youth gridiron players. Kenney Bui, a senior at Technology, Engineering and Communications (TEC) high school in Seattle, was playing defensive back when he was hurt in the fourth quarter of a game on Friday. He passed away Monday morning from what was believed to be a head injury.
High school football is the most dangerous level of the game because it is the least regulated.
Terry O'Neil, who runs Practice Like Pros, a group which offers clinics on safer football techniques for young players
Bui’s death is the fourth in a string of fatalities that highlight the long-running concerns about safety standards in high school American football, where more players die each year than at any other level of the game. Over the past 20 years, 77 students have died from direct injuries sustained during high school gridiron games, whereas at the professional and semi-professional levels, there has been a total of five in the same time period.
There’s no national governance, the sport is governed state to state, and some states don’t even require an ambulance or emergency medical workers on site at games. The medical infrastructure that exists in college and pro football does not exist in high school football.
Terry O'Neil
