By Emily Mapp Brannon, Traumatic Brain Injury Attorney

New legislation to protect student athletes from the dangers of concussions is being implemented across the United States, with Wisconsin (WI) being the latest state to consider a bill.

Medical experts, concussion survivors and the head of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association are among those supporting a law that would develop guidelines on the risk of head injuries and provide new rules for young athletes who are hurt on the field of play, JSOnline reported.

The bill “would require new guidelines to educate coaches, athletes and their parents about the risk of concussion and head injury in youth athletic activities. Experts say the number of traumatic brain injuries among young people is on the rise,” JSOnline reported.

The new legislation would also require a young athlete who is suspected of sustaining a concussion or head injury to be removed immediately from the game. The athlete could not return to the field until he or she is looked at by a health care provider trained to evaluate concussion or head other injuries. The athlete should also have permission to return to the game.

Our experienced Virginia (VA) traumatic brain injury attorneys have reported on moves by a number of states to bring in legislation to protect athletes from concussion. Virginia brought in the Student-Athlete Protection Act in January 2011.

There are good reasons for these rules. Recently we reported on how a 17-year-old student athlete from Virginia (VA) committed suicide two days after he suffered a blow to the head during a football game.

High schools and youth sports leagues in North Carolina (NC) and South Carolina (SC) also recently implemented new rules intended to prevent head-to-head contact, returning too early from concussions, and limiting injuries from balls, bats and other equipment.

Our firm obtained the largest personal injury verdict in Virginia history as of 2000 – $46 million – in the case of a gas station attendant who suffered a brain injury and other injuries when he was trapped inside a partly demolished gas station when a Norfolk Southern train derailed following an incorrect switch position.

DM

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper, Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law and have experience handling traumatic brain injury and general head injury cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office is in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA). Our attorneys achieved the largest verdict in Virginia’s history for a brain-damaged client in 2000. The initial award of $46 million rose to $60 million with interest when an appeal was settled confidentially. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. Our injury lawyers also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard blogs as pro bono public information services. While not every brain injury case meets our criteria, if you or a loved one is thinking about taking legal action against a possibly at-fault person or company that caused your injury, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail. We will return your call.

By Randy Appleton, Carolina Brain Injury Attorney

Researchers at North Carolina universities say they have developed smart football helmets that can measure the force of a blow to help protect players from traumatic brain injury.

Teams at at the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences and at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center say the helmets will provide more protection to football players, according to the Winston-Salem Journal reported.

“The research is focused on future helmet design and rules to limit head trauma exposure and assist trainers, coaches, doctors and players for evaluation of a possible injury and to identify or rule out possible concussions,” the newspaper reported.

According to Daryl Rosenbaum, the lead researcher at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, these helmets will help identify players who have taken a major hit allow on-the-spot real-time evaluation for signs of a concussion, instead of  waiting for the player to notice something is wrong.

“We have submitted a proposal to Toyota to fund the use of helmet sensor technology in local high schools in order to study the effects of football-related head trauma. We just had the system installed at Wake Forest University and used the helmets during spring training,” Rosenbaum said.

Our experienced Virginia (VA) traumatic brain injury attorneys have reported on a number of moves in the sports world to tighten up the rules on concussions in an attempt to prevent long lasting brain injuries. Earlier this year we noted how major league baseball has issued a policy related to concussions and created a seven-day disabled list for mild traumatic head injuries. The policy dictates how concussions, which are sometimes called closed head injuries, are diagnosed initially and will be used to determine when players and umpires can return to the field following a concussion.

My colleague John Cooper reported on how high school baseball players in Virginia cities such as Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, VA, will have to use bats engineered more like traditional ones, with a ban on some types of metal bats coming into effect.

In January 2011, we noted the lack of public information on helmets in sports to help athletes and their parents to make an informed choice. We reported how Virginia Tech engineering professor and safety advocate Stefan Duma is constructing an online database that will show and compare the effectiveness of different brands of helmets.

We welcome any moves to safeguard athletes, given the serious dangers of long term brain damage we now know can be associated with head injuries out in the field.

DM

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law and have experience handling traumatic brain injury and general head injury cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office is in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA). Our attorneys achieved the largest verdict in Virginia’s history for a brain-damaged client in 2000. The initial award of $46 million rose to $60 million with interest when an appeal was settled confidentially. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. Our injury lawyers also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard blogs as pro bono public information services. While not every brain injury case meets our criteria, if you or a loved one is thinking about taking legal action against a possibly at-fault person or company that caused your injury, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail. We will return your call.

By Rick Shapiro, VA Brain Injury Attorney

Inadequate facilities and a lack of supervision at a Virginia Tech basketball camp in Blacksburg, VA, contributed to the severe head injury sustained by a camper.

At least that’s the claim made in a Virginia personal injury lawsuit brought by Gary Schuler, whose teen-aged son, Austin Schuler, was injured in 2009, according to a report in the Roanoke Times. Injury lawyers acting for the family are suing the Seth Greenberg Basketball Camp and Virginia Tech for $2.5 million in a civil action brought last month in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

Austin Schuler was 15 when he fell or was thrown from the basketball court during a game and hit his head on a wall, suffering a brain injury, fracture, bruises, a cut and other wounds, according to the personal injury lawsuit, filed March 28.

Although Austin Schuler, who now lives near Staunton, Virginia, has recovered, but the lawsuit states he is at greater future risk of future injury and health issues. The personal injury lawsuit says the facilities at Blacksburg were inadequate to protect Schuler. Specifically it states the wall in a gym at Virginia Tech should have been padded near ground level where the boy struck his head.

The lawsuit further argues the distance between the end of the playing surface and wall, which was 33 inches, should have been greater; while the game official was not sufficiently trained and qualified.

We recently reported how baseball is taking extra precautions to protect players against brain and head injuries. Major league baseball has adopted a new joint policy related to concussions, which includes the creation of a seven-day disabled list.

Increasingly, schools and sports authorities are taking action to learn more about the symptoms of concussion and other sports injuries. Major steps have been taken in Virginia (VA) in recent months to improve the safety of baseball, including a ban on high performance aluminum bats.

These high performance metal bats make the baseball travel faster. A metal bat may have been linked to a traumatic brain injury suffered by a high school baseball player who was hit in the head by a line drive and sent into a coma last year.

Our Virginia personal injury lawyers have handled cases involving baseball and have handled other major Virginia brain injury personal injury cases as well. In one baseball related case, which we recently concluded, the manufacturer and the seller of a baseball pitching machine had improperly designed their product in such a way as to cause a facial injury to the athlete who was using the equipment.  Our injury attorneys (based in Virginia) developed substantial evidence and were able to obtain the settlement for our injured client.

The Virginia Tech lawsuit asks the significant questions of whether schools and colleges are doing enough and if sports facilities require fundamental redesigns to achieve greater safety for our athletes.  The court of public opinion seems to be demanding more.  This is exemplified by head and brain injuries suffered by our military in Iraq, as well as how active the NFL has been recently on brain injury and concussions.

DM

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law, and we have experience handling traumatic brain injury and general head injury cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA). Our attorneys achieved the largest verdict in Virginia’s history for a brain-damaged client in 2000. Our injury lawyers also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Furthermore, we proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard and Norfolk Injuryboard as pro bono public information services. While not every brain injury case meets our criteria, if you or a loved one is thinking about taking legal action against a possibly at-fault person or company who caused your injury, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail. We will return your call.

By Rick Shapiro, Brain Injury Attorney

Baseball is taking extra precautions to protect players against brain and head injuries with a new series of protocols adopted by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association.

The new joint policy related to concussions, includes the creation of a seven-day disabled list, MLB.com reports. A committee of experts created the policy. It dictates how concussions, which are sometimes called closed head injuries, are diagnosed initially and will be used to determine when players and umpires can return to the field following a concussion. The new policy goes into effect on Opening Day.

If you hit your head in a fall, accident or in a physical assault, you may suffer concussion-like symptoms known as post concussion syndrome, for weeks or months afterward, while traumatic brain injuries can cause memory loss. Mild traumatic brain injuries are less obvious. However, a mild traumatic brain injury can cause permanent damage. There is a increasing body of evidence that these concussion-type injuries, if untreated, can lead to other complications such as Parkinson-type diseases and dementia.

Increasingly, schools and sports authorities are taking action to learn more about the symptoms of concussion. Steps have been taken in Virginia (VA) in recent months to improve the safety of baseball, including a ban on high performance aluminum bats.

A batted baseball regularly travels at speeds of almost 100 mph. Balls coming off BESR-rated — ball exit speed ratio– bats easily reach speeds of 105 mph or greater. And the death of Double A first base coach Mike Coolbaugh during a Tulsa Drillers game in 2007 demonstrated how dangerous baseball can be. Increased the speed at which the ball enters play, and players and coaches in the field can have almost no chance to protect themselves from serious injuries to their heads, eyes, arms, legs or bodies.

Our firm has handled a larger number of cases involving baseball. In one case, which we recently concluded, the manufacturer and the seller of a baseball pitching machine had improperly designed their product in such a way as to cause a facial injury to the athlete using the equipment. This kind of product liability case requires a showing that the people who made and distributed the machinery had either designed it improperly or produced a product defectively in a way that would cause injury to someone when used normally. A permanent injury to a person’s eye occurred in this instance.

DM

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law, and we have experience handling traumatic brain injury and general head injury cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office  in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA). Our attorneys achieved the largest verdict in Virginia’s history for a brain-damaged client in 2000. Our injury lawyers also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Furthermore, we proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard and Norfolk Injuryboard as pro bono public information services. While not every brain injury case meets our criteria, if you or a loved one is thinking about taking legal action against a possibly at-fault person or company who caused your injury, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail. We will return your call.