Tragic injuries are relatively rare in sports

Serious spinal injuries rarely happen on the playing field.

But a freak incident — like the collision that sent Permian varsity offensive lineman Julio Rangel to the hospital Monday without feeling in his legs — could always happen on the next play.

Ector County Independent School District trainers, student trainers and coaches have been trained to act in the event of a serious traumatic injury.

“We meet and go beyond the UIL requirements for safety training,” ECISD athletic coordinator Todd Vesely said.

Trainers and coaches alike keep a copy of the ECISD safety handbook and try to review it as often as possible.

But the real work starts before the season begins.

Coaches, student trainers and trainers are required to complete a series of CPR, AED and First-Aid certification clinics, and all three groups are now required to handle a mock serious injury scenario during the training.

In terms of time and training, ECISD courses exceed the requirements set by the UIL, Vesely said.

“Safety courses require us to prepare as much as possible,” Odessa High trainer Steven Ortiz said. “If a coach has a heart attack, if a kid gets a head injury, the coaches go through training on how to deal with that.”

For an injury like the one Rangel suffered Monday, though, the procedure is simple.

First, a trainer has to carefully talk to the injured athlete to determine the extent of the injury — Ortiz said he deals with temporary loss of feeling once or twice a year — and perform a couple of tests to check for feeling.

Pinching the legs is a common test. Asking the athlete to wiggle their toes is another.

“If that is impossible, you automatically assume a spinal cord injury and contact emergency services,” Permian athletic trainer Randel Vaughn said. “Then we try to roll him on his back and stabilize him until the ambulance gets there.”

Trainers do not remove a player’s helmet — in the case of football — because helmets are designed to support the head and neck.

From there, the trainer administers CPR and first aid if need, roll the player on his back until emergency help arrives and try to help out the paramedics once they arrive on the scene.

“I personally don’t like to leave the player’s neck until it’s on the spine board,” Vaughn said. “Once we get it stabilized, we don’t want any movement at all.”

Counting Rangel’s injury, the Permian football program has seen two severe spinal cord injuries in the past decade. Former Permian linebacker Joe Beene suffered a severe injury during practice in 2000 and has been paralyzed since.

But the chances of a severe spinal cord injury are slim.

According to a position statement by the National Athletic Trainers’ Association, an average of 7.8 catastrophic cervical spine injuries occur annually in football alone.

“Injuries like that don’t happen very often,” Vaughn said. “I’ve known athletic trainers that have gone their whole careers and never seen one.”

And football isn’t the only sport that suffers severe injuries.

Lacrosse, gymnastics and men’s ice hockey have a higher incident rate per capita of severe spinal cord injuries than football, but the risk is present in almost any sport.

“In reality, you have kids diving into a pool, coming off of the high bar and the uneven bars in gymnastics, high-speed collisions in soccer,” Vesely said. “We’re susceptible in so many ways.”