Dangers in the School Gym Setting

[verbatim]

During a high school gym class game of dodgeball (no boundaries/no teams), which we play pretty rough, (I ended up getting tackled about 5-10 minutes prior by someone who benches 300 lb's +) two students dived for the ball. Somehow, one dived too low and the other dived just high enough to accidently knee him in the temple. Short story short, the noise was loud enough that the entire class stopped playing in time to see the effects. Class was ended and we ended up funneling out while every P.E. teacher funneled in to help. He was taken to the hospital and put into a drug induced coma due to several injures, the ones I have confirmed being swelling in the brain and a fractured eye socket. It's been 3 days since then.

Currently his mom is seeking to get this version of dodgeball (specifically this version, not dodgeball itself) removed from the school. I feel horrible for what had happened (imagine how the guy that hit him feels) but I don't find myself agreeing with the decision that will be passed (you can't blame the school system, if a bunch of parents start protesting, there's not much they can do.

My Opinion

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The incident occurred over two students diving for one ball, which could just as easily happen in Basketball, Baseball, Football, etc. I can quote my teacher verbatim as saying that it was, "a one in a [insert arbitrary round number, probably a thousand or a million] [event/chance/thing]".

Personally, I'd like to read what this community has to say on weather or not this upcoming "ban" is justifiable. Should we ban this version, ban nothing, or ban dodgeball in all its entirety?

 

[VKCA]

I saw a piece on the news about how a school in toronto was banning "hard" balls from the playground/school, and you could only use soft foam balls. That, is fucking stupid.

The game you're describing does seem kind of dangerous though. Banning dodge ball entirely doesn't really make sense, since in regular dodgeball there isn't any physical contact that could result in something like this..

 

[verbatim]

To be fair, the dude that tackled me does that to everyone, and despite having a hundred pounds on half the class hasn't hurt a single person.

 

[kd24]

dodgeball was banned since when i was in middle school 7-8 years ago...

 

[MrIndigo]

I don't know enough about the game and the %chance of injury to say whether it should be banned, but a related anecdote:

My brother was playing soccer, and one of the opposing players was running into the box on an open ball as the keeper barrelled out to dive on it. The striker's leg hit the goalie right on the forehead at full speed... and shattered. Apparently the guy's tibia/fibula broke in like 9 different places.

 

[macle]

who the fuck takes gym class seriously enough to fucking dive?

also its your school's fault. What kind of gym class lets students tackle each other?????

 

[verbatim]

I don't know enough about the game and the %chance of injury to say whether it should be banned, but a related anecdote:

My brother was playing soccer, and one of the opposing players was running into the box on an open ball as the keeper barrelled out to dive on it. The striker's leg hit the goalie right on the forehead at full speed... and shattered. Apparently the guy's tibia/fibula broke in like 9 different places.

It's dodgeball, except we have a semi small room, no teams, no boundaries, and we can be fairly forthwith in our strategies (i.e., we can tackle/wrestle to get the ball, but no striking). The thing is, neither person was being intentionally rough when this happen, they both went for the ball, and one guy went too high and the other guy went too low.

who the fuck takes gym class seriously enough to fucking dive?

Its a weights class, I'd consider most of the people jocks in one fashion or another.

 

[min min]

The Rugby team manager/teacher at my school fractured a rib and went back to plain old teaching because one of the boys somehow accidentally donkey-kicked him in the chest while they were playing tag. It's apparently a very long story, but hey! isolated incident so no ban. It's probably going to end up the same in this case, despite the shenanigans that you describe happening every single gym class.

 

[verbatim]

The mom's currently posting on his condition on facebook and urging her friends to write to the school asking for it to be banned. Considering that our school was already considering banning Ultimate Football, I don't have the highest hopes for Dodgeball to stay.

 

[undisputed]

this is interesting. personally, i think it becomes a lot more important to keep games safe when the kids get bigger. when youve got big kids in a weight lifting class, theres a lot more competitiveness and the hits are a lot harder. last year, my sophomore year in highschool, my friends and i could still play tackle football without getting too hurt. this year, after a lot of us started lifting, its gotten pretty scary with no pads so we had to shift to 2 hand touch haha.

imo, its a lot of fun to play competitive games with other athletic kids, but you need to know when some things can get dangerous

 

[Nastyjungle]

dodgeball was banned in my school when i was like in 7th grade or something

which was really awful because lets be honest dodgeball is one of the best games of all time

 

[mattj]

I went to a very small school. Everybody knew everybody and we all got along well. We were too small to do otherwise. Since we were all good friends the boys all tended to be pretty competitive about whatever we were playing in P.E. Now, I'm not a huge muscular guy, and no I'm not like 400lbs fat or something, but I have a lot of mass to say the least. I can recall two times where I was involved in accidents nearly that severe. Once in gymhockey all I did was stand there as a smaller guy ran smack into me. I didn't even flinch but he dislocated his knee and had to be carted off in an ambulance. I knew I wasn't at fault in any way (fool should have been looking where he was running) but regardless I felt terrible about the whole thing. Another time, which was definitely my foolish fault for being carless, while playing flag football I ran smack into a girl who wasn't paying attention. She just went flying and landed on her back and couldn't see for a while. She recovered within a few minutes but at first I seriously thought I had blinded her.

I can see how the game you described is a dangerous game. But to be honest almost any game that you can imagine can be a dangerous game. I dislocated that kid's knee in gym-hockey. I almost blinded a girl in flag-football. You could elbow somebody in basketball. You could nail someone in the temple with a baseball. You could shoot someone in archery. There really is no end to it.

I realize that circumstance makes you and others feel terrible because you know the people involved, but I don't think banning it is the right way. Better supervision and more careful students would make more of a difference. Ban that game and someone else is just going to get hurt in another game.

 

[Wikey]

Balls don't hurt kids. Kids do.

I'm sure there's a Sandusky/Fine joke there somewhere...

 

[Eraddd]

imo, its a lot of fun to play competitive games with other athletic kids, but you need to know when some things can get dangerous

Nailed it. The chance of kneeing someone and then putting them straight into a coma sounds medically slim. Unless someone can suggest something, I don't see anyway that they could have minimized this risk (which was pretty small to begin with). It was a freak accident, and while this news is saddening, I believe that the game should be banned outright.

 

[UsernameSayWha]

I lol at this being posted on a Pokemon forum. BAN PHYS.ED OR MY LEVEL 100 ARCEUS WILL EAT YOU.

My opinion: Freak Acident. I played Minor Football when I was 11. The most serious thing that ever happwned was some kid decided to be stupid and tried to run head first into some guys knee. O–Line did his job and the kid fell wierd and broke his neck. Now this is FOOTBALL. Not a High School Dodgeball game. And btw, how do you play dodgeball with no boundaries. lol. And if I was the kids mother I would sue the School Board/Principal/ Phys.Ed teachers. Thats not how you play dodgeball. Thats why you don't run in the halls. Next thing you know you might be in a coma. :P

EDIT: North America = Most obese continent in the world.

 

[tennisace]

Yeah I'm not sure why parents get all up in arms about gym class when the kid was probably (not an actuary by any means) just as likely to get into a car accident or something. It sounds terrible but shit happens; if I had the choice of staying active and fit or sitting on my fat ass 10/10 I choose to play a sport. I could go on a long rant about how pussy America has gotten but w/e not worth it.

edit: also why the fuck are you playing dodgeball with no boundries, the whole point is to THROW THE BALLS, not have full contact melees.

 

[Fishy]

in my freshman gym class we were playing kick ball
this football player runs up and kicks the ball straight into the pitcher's face, and the girl went DOWN

we all hugged and cried it out - it was an accident!

dodgeball can be intense, but players should be more wary about causing real accidents like this over a gym class dodge ball game. if dodgeball is banned from this school after the kid gets out of his coma he'd probably be like 'aw man for real??'

 

[Alan]

I don't even remember what dodgeball is like. It was banned from the schools I went to from like 3rd grade on.

We did occasionally play with those foam balls that fly for about 3 feet and then have a sudden drop off.

 

[CaptainKishimoto]

I remember one time in Gym, we (Gr.9ers) had to play dodgeball against the seniors. God that was like the most evil thing to happen in Gym. I mean the most dangerous thing during that time was obviously getting hit by a ball, but I've never encountered something even remotely close to what you're describing. That version of dodgeball sounds...insane for a lack of a better word =/

 

[Umbreon Dan]

dodgeball was never banned at my school for as long as i took gym ^_^

but uh yeah seriously how difficult is it to come up with safer forms of exercise (it's not very)

 

[Alan]

dodgeball was never banned at my school for as long as i took gym ^_^

but uh yeah seriously how difficult is it to come up with safer forms of exercise (it's not very)

dodgeball isn't intrinsically dangerous, the kid was being a jackass. really any sport is dangerous without common sense.

 

[Umbreon Dan]

it sounded like this version was dangerous to me.

 

[Heracr055]

In high school, my coach occasionally allowed me and my water polo team to play dodge ball in the gym. With water polo balls. Those things are hard :x

Anyways, sometimes someone would get pretty nailed with those things (by the ball or each other), but nobody really got hurt, not in the fashion described by OP. That was just recklessness.

 

[jumpluff]

The problem here is that your school stupidly lets you play a dangerous version of dodgeball, not dodgeball.

Injuries can happen in any gym sport, but I am shocked your teachers did not foresee how patently stupid no boundaries dodgeball would be. There's no need to take the chance of injury and amplify it. Hell, it's not even proper dodgeball. Just play with softer balls and no melee.

 

[az]

isn't this murderball...........?