Shocked by the death of a vibrant young female rugby player, the City of Ottawa and province of Ontario are poised to reconsider their return to play policies. The death involved 17-year-old Rowan Stringer, a rugby player, who had apparently experienced other head injuries days before a hard tackle on the field of play caused her to go airborne and land on her head. She sat up briefly after the incident before lapsing into unconsciousness.
The girl’s family told the media that Stringer suffered blows to the head in at least two games in the week leading up to her final game, though there is some question about who knew about the injuries.
The family, which authorized an autopsy to find out more about what happened to their daughter, told the media they’re not looking to assign any blame, but instead, educate others.
“We’re hoping that we can educate and teach them that playing a high school sport game is never more important than taking care of yourself,” Kathleen Stringer said.
Denis Blondin, head coach of the Carleton University varsity women’s rugby team, weighed in on the challenge of keeping players off the field. “The urge is to get players out there,” Blondin told the media, stressing that cool, detached judgment needs to be applied, given “how high the risks can be.”
Carleton requires that players go through baseline testing before the start of the season, and then are tested intermittently throughout the year. But, “it’s still up to the players to be up front and honest with us.”
School Boards Consider Return to Learn Policies as Well
While Stringer’s deal may prompt increase emphasis on return-to-play policies, other school boards in the province are looking at return-to-learn policies. The Toronto District School Board, for example, recently launched a pilot program at eight schools to explore how students who have suffered a concussion should return to the classroom.
Howard Goodman, a trustee who has been a key advocate for the pilot program, told the Ottawa Citizen: “When you break your leg, you don’t go running sprints before it’s healed. When you’ve injured your brain, you don’t go working it really hard until it’s healed.”
The paper went on to note that the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board doesn’t have formal return-to-learn guidelines. Instead, the Board leaves it up to the athlete and “his or her physician.”
Specifically, “the medical health of the student is best assessed by his or her physician. The decision about a student’s readiness to return to school after an injury is one that is best made by the parents after consultation with a medical professional,” the board stated to the media.
This has to change, according to Goodman, who advocating a more proactive approach, or having every parent and student involved in athletics take some concussion training.
