ROGERS (KFSM) -- Most high school football teams in our area will be playing their season opener games tomorrow night (Sept. 2). Mercy Sports Medicine, Rogers EMS and Rogers High School trainers came together Thursday (Sept. 1) to discuss what they would do if a player was injured on the field and how to best handle each situation.
"This takes a lot of those what ifs out of it because we are all here working together,” Rogers Fire Department Captain Dennis Thurman said.
Two football players in full gear volunteered to play the part of the injured athlete in each scenario. The main concerns when a player is injured on the field are head, neck and spinal injuries.
Thurman said sports safety equipment is always changing.
“Revisit when to remove pads, when not to remove pads, when to completely strip them down and when to just take a face mask off," Thurman said. "We kind of just revisit those things right before the season so it`s fresh on everyone`s minds.”
Thurman says understanding the mechanics of the body is the difference between helping an injured player and making the situation worse.
"We know what the commands are, we know who`s going to call the shots, we`re going to move on whose count," Thurman said. "All those things come into play when we do it here in the training setting.”
Mercy Sports Medicine Director Dr. Wade Fox said concussions are a huge concern and they`re finding out new information all the time.
“There was a point in time where we used to, we`ll you just got a dinger let`s fight through it," Fox said. "And what we found out is that is not good, kids do worse...communicating that I may have a problem, something is going on actually has better outcomes.”
Dr. Fox said they also work with the University of Arkansas research department. He said they are putting out the best and most recent data across the country in concussion management.