More online, and parts two and three (tomorrow)The Grauniad today wrote:Death of a schoolboy: why concussion is rugby union's dirty secret
On 29 January 2011, 14-year-old Ben Robinson played rugby union for his school. After being treated three times for blows to the head and sent back to the field on each occasion, he collapsed and later died in hospital. Behind his profoundly tragic story is another of a sport in denial, where authorities at all levels dither over treating concussion while all the time, players grow stronger, heavier and the hits get ever bigger
The house is silent, but the silence speaks. It tells a story. Once, a boy lived here, who was loud. Not like his sister. Their mother seldom knew whether the girl was in or out, but she could always tell when her son was home. She could hear him, even when he was holed up in the front room playing computer games. He filled the house. Now he is gone, and in his absence, there is silence. And so the silence speaks.
Awesome. Loving. Vibrant. These are the three words Karen Walton and Peter Robinson chose to describe their son, Benjamin. They are carved in stone in a cemetery outside the small town of Carrickfergus, in Northern Ireland. Ben was 14 when he died, from brain injuries inflicted while playing rugby union for his school, Carrickfergus Grammar, against Dalriada. In September a coroner determined that the cause of death was a rare condition called Second Impact Syndrome. But behind those words is a simpler one, a word Karen describes as "rugby's dirty secret". Ben Robinson died because of concussion.
Ben took too many blows to the head in too short a space of time. His death could, and should, have been prevented. "For something like this to happen," Peter says, "there have to be so many failings. And on that day, unfortunately for Ben, there were so many failings." There should have been a chain of health-and-safety procedures in place, one that included players, coaches, referees and parents. If just one link in that chain had worked as it should have, Ben's concussion would have been spotted. He would have been removed from the pitch, and he may have survived.
The coroner said Ben was the first person in the UK to die of Second Impact Syndrome while playing rugby. Karen, whose life has been shattered, says she is certain Ben will not be the last. "Will this happen again?" she asks. "Yes. I would say without a doubt another family will go through what we have been through." Since 2006, at least five children and one adult have died, worldwide, from brain injuries suffered while playing rugby. Second Impact Syndrome is rare. Concussion is not. Neither are the injuries it causes.
Karen's house is silent, but the silence speaks. It tells its own story. Of a boy's death and a family's grief. It tells the story of a sport in denial about the risks being taken by those who play it, struggling to square the blood, guts and glory attitude of its amateur days with the brutal power of the professional game, and riven with disagreement about how to deal with its single most important issue – concussion.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/d ... ugby-union
