Deary teen recovers after being struck in face by discus
Jun. 25—Deary student Braedyn Stettler, 17, was sure he was standing at a safe distance and angle from his teammate during track and field practice in May, when his face was shattered by a wayward discus.
Recalling the accident, Stettler said he was to the right and about 16 feet behind his teammate, but he didn't actually see the throw coming before he felt the strike.
"He did a spin — I wasn't looking at the guy who was throwing, I was looking at my coach — and he threw it and let go too early, and it smacked me right in the side of the face," he said. "It felt like all the nerves just died right then and there — I didn't even feel it. I just felt something hit me, and then slowly feeling everything ... like an indicator that my face was starting to cave in, but it was really slow."
A standard discus thrown in high school events for male athletes is essentially a 3 1/2 -pound metal Frisbee, usually ringed with an edge of plastic, fiberglass, wood or carbon fiber.
Braedyn's mother, Heather Stettler, said the impact shattered his cheekbone, sinuses and orbital bone, surrounding the eye socket. She said the injury even caused his teeth to become misaligned.
Surgeons repaired some of the damage a day after the injury by installing two titanium plates in Braedyn's face, but he'll soon return for a second operation where surgeons will remove a part of his hip bone to fix his shattered sinus.
For Braedyn, who throws discus and shotput for Deary High School and had just earned a guaranteed spot in the state championships, the episode ended his junior season early.
"It's a very serious injury that's going to affect him the rest of his life," she said. "I really need to get the point across that we need safeties for these small schools for the students to safely practice something that is a sponsored school activity."
She said her primary concern after the fact is that the school take measures to ensure the likelihood of similar injuries is minimized, noting many schools have net or chain-link enclosures surrounding throwers. She said allowing the activity to continue without such measures is "like playing football and not having a helmet."
She said when she spoke to one of the team's coaches, he called the erratic throw a fluke — yet she said at least four other Deary students have been struck in similar, albeit less serious, incidents in this past season alone, and there have been many close calls as well.
Matt Smitley, director of the University of Idaho's athletic training program, said these kinds of injuries are rare, but are a part of the risk inherent in competitive throwing events.
However, he said, there are steps coaches and schools can take to minimize that risk as much as possible.
He said the first and easiest step is to make sure competitors have good situational awareness — both on the part of the thrower and the observer. He said other measures include having the sector the discs are being thrown into marked by flags or cones as well as the fencing or netting Heather Stettler mentioned.
Smitley said he's worked in high school athletics in a couple of different states, and these kinds of physical barriers are fairly common.
"More generally speaking, one way that schools and people can help mitigate these risks is employing athletic trainers," Smitley said. "Unfortunately, it's not necessarily the standard nationwide, and I don't know if this school has an athletic trainer, but if they're able to have health care present at these events, they can help prevent and mitigate these risks."
Administrators with Deary Junior-Senior High School declined to comment for this story.
Jackson can be reached at (208) 883-4636, or by email to sjackson@dnews.com.
