Head injuries most common in high school football players in Missouri

Each year, the Missouri State High School Activities Association puts out a Youth Sports Brain Injury Report based on information collected from its member schools. Since 2011, football has been the sport with the most reported head injuries.

On Wednesday, junior Eldon football player Hunter Bushnell broke his C5 vertebra in his neck when he took a hard hit during practice.

While MSHSAA communications director Jason West said Bushnell’s accident wasn’t a head injury, he said it’s one of the more serious ones reported in recent years.

“We always hate to see something like this happen,” West said. “It’s been a few years since we’ve had an injury like this in the state of Missouri, at least as far as we know.”

In 2013, junior Tipton football player Chad Stover died of a severe brain injury he sustained during a playoff game.

Last school year, 1,336 head injuries suffered by high school football players were reported across the state making up about 40 percent of all head injuries in high school athletes. A total of 1,260 head injuries in football players were reported in the 2015-2016 school year. Girls soccer and cheerleading rounded out the three sports with the most head injuries each year.

“We haven’t seen a lot of increase, but at the same time we haven’t seen a lot of decrease quite yet because people are able to recognize it more easily now,” West said.

West said changes have been made to football rules, games and practices over the past few years in hopes to reduce the amount of brain injuries. For example, he said during the first three days of football practice, players practice without pads and do not tackle other players. He said it’s to allow coaches to teach proper tackling techniques.

“Unfortunately those changes have been made fairly recently, so it’s going to take a few more years for us to tell if it’s actually working,” he said.