Risk Avoidance for Athletics

Preventing Athletic Emergencies has emerged in the forefront of Risk Avoidance for K-12 School Districts among school administrators as a growing number of students are participating in contact sports across the nation.  The topic landed on cover of September 2013 edition of DA District Administration Magazine.  http://www.districtadministration.com/toc/17628

Central to the discussion is the need for an "Emergency Action Plan" (EAP) that directs the actions to be taken in an emergency at any one of the various venues involving practice or game day.  As pointed out in the article:  "If you don't have an EAP for each venue and sport, then you're really behind the eight-ball." - Douglas Casa, chair of NATA's task force on preventing sudden death.  The real challenge is prevention or 'Risk Avoidance' to hopefully never need to act on the plan; however, like all emergency planning, it starts with development of a comprehensive plan and practicing the plan to ensure all affected know and understand their roles.

Prevention starts with a strong focus on training and development and implementation of district policies and practices dealing with prevention and treatment of sports-related injuries such as Heat Stroke and Concussions.  In Summit, we have had these plans underway since October of 2011 - well ahead of the new guidelines put out by The New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association http://njsiaa.org/medical-topics.  

Central to planning and prevention aspect of the district's EAP is the need to survey, install and monitor AED's (automated external defibrillators).  An automated external defibrillator (AED) is a portable electronic device that automatically diagnoses the life threatening cardiac arrhythmias of ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia in a patient and is able to restart the heart through defibrillation thus stopping the arrhythmia and allowing the heart to reestablish an effective rhythm.