Activity related injuries are a risk that many high school athletes are willing to take due to their love of their sport. This year, it seems NHS students have faced an increase in injuries that forced players and coaches to work around and find alternate solutions for the benefit of the team. Due to harsh injuries, numerous football players in particular had to surrender their season. Before students are able to practice, they are required to get a physical, which is meant to determine possible health related concerns that may hinder results throughout the season according to Healthline.

A study completed by Weinstein Legal shows that approximately 90% of the student athletes surveyed reported getting injured from a sport, with 54% of these athletes saying that they continued to play their sport while injured. A common injury faced when playing football is a type of hand or wrist injury, these kinds of injuries are one of the top seven injuries according to UPMC Sports Medicine. 

“During our game against Maize South, I had a pulling guard coming towards me down the line,” senior Alex Vidacs said. “I put my left hand up to make contact and force him outside of me so I could play the running back. My hand got caught on his facemask and I wasn’t able to get it out of the way before we made contact. Our facemasks smashed my finger and it just sheared the tip right off.”

Volleyball is an indoor sport that has a 10.9% probability of knee injuries in its athletes according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). Senior Gracie Rains additionally plays softball in the spring, which shares a list of potential injuries with volleyball. Rains has decided that despite harsh injuries endured at the beginning of her senior year, she plans to continue to play throughout her final seasons. 

“I injured myself in the Maize volleyball tournament we had in the middle of our season. I landed wrong when I came down from hitting,” Rains said. “My passion for this sport is so great that this injury will not prevent me from doing what I love. Even though this was difficult for everyone to adjust to because I wasn’t able to play, everyone had my back and supported me the whole way. They pushed me to heal and it was such a motivation factor for me to get back on that court and finish my season with my girls and coaches.” 

On the sidelines there are professionals, like the athletic trainer, that will help players in case of injury. Vidacs shared his injury pictures to his instagram page, which showed the stitching that was done by the medical professionals. 

“Katrina [the NHS trainer] helped stop the bleeding and Dr. Koontz found my fingertip and got it off of the field. It’s going to take about 8 weeks total to be completely healed,” Vidacs said. “It’s been long and painful but the mental part [is] honestly the hardest to deal with.”