Tough Local Story re Inches

Thanks for sharing bigmac!

Story hit home with me.  When my boys were younger, I stood at the exact same spot on that field without necessarily keeping a close eye on the warm up throws.

Thanks for passing that along.  Wow, is right.

What happened to him sucks, no doubt. I've learned something here.

Based on that story I'm not going to....

Let my kid ride a bike, because he could wreck and fracture a wrist needing multiple surgeries. Climb a tree, because he could fall out and crush an ankle.

Ride in a car

Fly on a plane

Ride a skateboard

Surf (shark)

Boat (shark, drown)

Drive a car (insert catastrophic injury here}

My son is going to sit in his room and watch TV and play Xbox. Nothing bad can happen to him that way.

Woah, Somebaseballdad, did you read the same story I read?  I didn't get that AT ALL.  Serious head trauma isn't remotely close to a fractured wrist or a broken ankle.  Did you read the parts about the personality changes, the emotional control issues, the near-suicidal thoughts that crept in, the emotional agony of the wife, the horror of the son seeing a disfigured unrecognizable dad?  And, yet even at that, he is not saying don't play, don't drive, don't fly, don't ride, etc.  He is saying ride with a seatbelt, skate with protective gear, boat in a seaworthy vessel, drive responsibly, surf... well, during years when there are not a crazy number of attacks . 

Just so happens, one of our sons has suffered serious head trauma and on another occasion, tore his wrist up pretty bad and did require multiple procedures.  The wrist injury threatened to end his baseball career and threatened his future ability to do a whole bunch of things he loves doing.  That was concerning to us and of course to him, but the level of concern and threat to his being were NOTHING compared to dealing with head trauma where there is internal bleeding, swelling, threat to life, threat of short term and/or long term brain damage, possibility of chronic headaches, memory issues, cognitive function issues, light sensitivity, mood swings, not knowing if you'll ever be able to concentrate for any length of time, and on and on.  There is uncertainty with many of these issues as to whether they may ever subside.

You may want to re-read the whole thing. 

I was always a risk taker, first to jump off of ciffs, climb rocks, swim across lakes, jump bikes, ride/drive fast...  and never wanted to hear about wearing extra gear or not jumping into the unknown.  I sold my motorcycles shortly after our state laws started requiring helmets... loved the wind blowing thru my now-absent hair. 

Now, "America's Funniest Home Video's" is literally painful for me to watch.  Every blooper that involves a person falling the shortest of distances and hitting or even nearly hitting their head causes particularly anxious cringing and pain to me and I'm not even the one who experienced the trauma (referring to my son's). 

Now, we have a young man who plays for our HS football team who suffered a serious head trauma about a month ago. He has gone thru week long induced coma.  During that week, all bets were off.  He has been bounced to various hospitals and medical specialists.  He has made some progress but still has trouble recognizing people and will likely never fully regain all of his cognitive functions.  There remains much uncertainty about his future.  One of the HS players I coach and work with in the off season is a very good friend of the injured player.  He broke down last time we worked together.  I think I covered well when that made me break down.  He has struggled quite a bit in trying to deal with the condition of his friend, as are so  many at the school.  There have been grief counselors, rallies, fund raisers, prayer vigils, signs all over town showing support in hopes of his recovery.  The coaches, trainers, AD, principal are all struggling quite a bit in dealing with this.  Imagine the mom and dad.  Not quite like a broken ankle.  I love football.  Always have.  I hate football.  

 Dealing with something like this will change you.  I hope you never have to experience it first hand with any of your kids. 

Absolutely let them play.  Let them live.  But a smart precaution here or there isn't a bad thing.

I'm with Cabbage.  I'm wondering if some baseball dad read the same story I did.

Great story.  

However I'm more worried about my kids driving since a lot more kids are killed by cars

Thanks BigMac for the good read. Son has worn a heartguard since he was about 11-12 (he's not a pitcher, which is position that probably wears these the most for hard comebackers), just to be safer. Fought us at first, but has long seen it as part of his uni and says it makes him look bigger.

Just makes you realize that life can change in an instant.  Live every day to its fullest. 

What happened to the guy sucks, no doubt. I didn't mean to seem indifferent.

My point was, I bet if you were to look, there's thousands of story's out there like that. Bad thinks happen to good people.

You buy your kid a chest protector, face mask, knee guards, elbow guards, cup, hell wrap him in bubble wrap. Then get t-boned by a guy running a red light on the way to the game,

That said your talking to a guy who let his kid race MX.

Son has worn a heartguard since he was about 11-12 (he's not a pitcher, which is position that probably wears these the most for hard comebackers), just to be safer

The studies that I've seen show those don't work. 

Holy cow. My first facility was built inside the NSBA indoor facility years ago. 

Jeez.