Heatstroke fatalities down in football

For the second year in a row, researchers found no deaths due to heatstroke among young football players during the 2003 season, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study shows. Between 1995-2001, 21 players died from heatstroke.

"Again, this year, we have good news to report because we have been concerned about the heatstroke toll. Heat-related deaths in sports are almost entirely preventable," declares Frederick Mueller, chair of exercise and sport science in the College of Arts and Sciences. "When they happen, it means someone forgot to emphasize or practice what coaches and trainers have been told for years--players should get all the water they want in practice and have frequent cooling-off breaks to prevent these tragedies."

Three players died during 2003 as a direct result of injuries suffered on the field, including two in high school and one in youth football. Two fatalities came following severs head injuries and a third after an injury to a neck artery. That 36 young men died in 1968 as a direct result of football injuries shows how much safer the game has become through rule, equipment, medical, and coaching changes that came about, in part, because of data Mueller and others collected. No such deaths occurred in 1990.

Between 1960 and 2003, 101 players died from heatstroke, Mueller notes. Eight players died from heatstroke in 1970 alone, the highest one-year total. Before 1955, no heatstroke deaths were recorded among football players. Few schools and homes could afford air-conditioning, and it was likely players were better acclimated to hot weather.

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