Kids Suffer Sports Injuries Every 25 Seconds

Published on August 9, 2013

"We uncovered some surprising and disturbing data about how often our kids are being injured playing sports," Kate Carr, president and CEO of Safe Kids Worldwide, said in a statement.

For the new report, researchers from the child injury awareness organization looked at emergency room data collected in 2011 on injuries related to the top 14 sports for kids, including basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, cheerleading and ice hockey.

The most common injuries were strains and sprains, followed by fractures, bruises and scrapes.

Especially concerning though were the researchers found about 163,000 of those ER visits -- or 12 percent -- were for concussions. That's about one child concussed every three minutes, Safe Kids points out. Nearly half of the concussions (47 percent) occurred in children between 12 and 15 years old, a "disturbing" trend because younger children take longer to recover from concussions than older ones. Serious and potentially deadly brain swelling is also more common in young people with traumatic brain injuries than adults, the report added.

In March, the American Academy of Neurology issued new guidelines recommending that kids sit out of games after suffering a concussionuntil they have been cleared by a doctor.

Image: Boy playing football, via Shutterstock

Was this page helpful?

Thanks for your feedback!

Tell us why!