Luke Schemm was a 17-year-old senior and attended Wallace County High School in Sharon Springs, Kansas. In a playoff game on Tuesday night, he scored back-to-back touchdowns. When he scored the last touchdown in the middle of the third quarter, he was tackled and went down.
NBC News is reporting that according to his father, he got up and ran to the sidelines where he collapsed. Luke’s father, David Schemm was traveling on business Tuesday night and was unable to attend his son’s game, but he did stream it.
Schemm recounted to CNN News: “The last thing I did to him before I left … and I still give my boys when I see them … is a kiss on the forehead and I tell them ‘I love them’ before they go to bed, and I ask every parent out there to do the same to their children, too.”
Football practice turns tragic for nine-year-old
On Monday this week, nine-year-old Wyatt Barber was running sprints with his youth football teammates in Pomeroy, Ohio.
“During the process of stopping and taking a break, the young man collapsed, and [coaches] started doing CPR on him immediately, and contacted 911,” Meigs County Sheriff Keith Wood told CNN affiliate WSAZ. The third-grader was taken to the hospital where he died.
“Wyatt loved what he was doing and being a part of the Big Bend football program. To have a death like that is a terrible thing to see happen,” Wood said.
The Meigs County Coroner’s office issued a statement on November 4, saying: “A preliminary autopsy report says his death was the result of an abnormal left main coronary artery in the heart. Final autopsy results won’t be available for another four to six weeks. According to local station WSAZ, no one was aware of any health issues or heart problems with the third-grader.
The statistics on youth sports deaths is sobering
Between 2008 and 2009, there were 120 youth sports-related deaths in the U.S. In 2010, there were 50 deaths, and in 2011, 40 deaths. Approximately 8,000 children are treated in an emergency room in this country each day for sports-related injuries.
High school athletes suffer 2 million injuries, 500,000 doctor visits and 30,000 hospitalizations each year. These figures are three times higher than those for college athletes. Less than half of all high schools in the U.S. (42 percent) have access to athletic training services and only 47 percent of schools have a registered nurse or other health care worker available according to the federally recommended nurse-to-student ratio. Many schools have no nurse.
Parents have to be advocates for their child’s safety
The rash of young football players dying while playing a sport they obviously love has again raised questions over the safety of the sport. Sadly, there will be traumatic brain injuries, heat-caused illnesses, and sudden cardiac arrests among youth athletes, regardless of the sport they are participating in, but as parents, there are some things you can do.
Parents have to be advocates for their child’s safety when playing sports such as football. You can’t sit in the bleachers watching your child play, assuming that existing rules are good enough, or that your school is following them.
Find out before signing that liability waiver. And find out if a health care professional well-versed in concussion injuries is on hand for the football games. And make sure to get your child a thorough physical before allowing him or her to participate on a sports team.