Eastern Idaho player’s concussion prompts prevention
DRIGGS, Idaho — Six years have passed since a series of concussions nearly killed Teton High School football player Kort Breckenridge.
Memories of Breckenridge collapsing on the field, the emergency brain surgery that saved his life and his permanent brain damage prompted the Teton County School District to take action.
Last week in the high school gym, senior quarterback Logan Petersen stood on one foot with his eyes closed as Caroline Faure clicked a stopwatch. Faure ran Petersen and the other 50 Teton varsity and JV football players through several balance tests, noting each time a player lost balance.
The tests were difficult, but the players weren’t competing against one another. Instead, their performance gave Faure a baseline to test each player against if they take a hard hit or show symptoms of a concussion.
Petersen said he sees Breckenridge limp while walking the sidelines at football games. He hears Breckenridge’s slurred speech. He said he’ll gladly struggle through a few awkward tests to ward off long-term consequences.
“(The tests) show where you are at,” Petersen said. “We’ve had the experience with Kort. That scares me sometimes, to think if that happened to me. I think (the tests) will help out.”
Faure has tackled concussions in youth sports as a personal crusade. An assistant professor at Idaho State University and the founder of the Center for Sports Concussions at ISU, Faure also ran the Teton players through a neurocognitive test in the school computer lab.
The ImPACT test — the same test used by the NFL — measured players’ attention span, reaction time and working memory, the first cognitive faculties diminished by concussions.
If a player takes a hard hit, he must take the test a few days later or when symptom-free. If a player’s scores are in line with the baseline test, the player returns to the field. Scores below the baseline show lingering symptoms, meaning the player must sit out at least until the score returns to the baseline.
Neurocognitive testing has become more common in high school sports as concussion research has accelerated over the past five years. Players from 23 Idaho high school football teams take the neurocognitive test, including players from Teton, Salmon, Idaho Falls and Skyline high schools. Teton, however, is the first district in the state to mandate the tests.
Breckenridge struggles to remember anything for longer than 15 minutes, and he may need supervision the rest of his life. But he’s alert and pleased that his alma mater is ahead of the curve. Teton also tested its boys and girls soccer teams and will test the basketball and wrestling teams in the winter.
“(The tests) should be an absolute must,” Breckenridge said, his inflection a little off. “I don’t want kids going through the hell that I went through, to not be able to talk right.”
In 2010, Faure, Breckenridge and his father, Ray Breckenridge, drove to Boise and pitched a bill to the Idaho House of Representatives aiming to curb concussions in high school sports.
Breckenridge spoke on the House floor about how surgeons removed the right hemisphere of his skull, and how his brain ballooned beyond his ear.
He spoke about talking to God as he lay in an induced coma for two weeks.
“Kort’s Law,” as Faure’s bill was known, had three legs. The first leg mandated concussion training for all youth coaches and required concussion information to be available for all players and parents. The second mandated instant removal from competition and practice for any symptomatic player. The third required clearance from a medical professional for the player to return.
Lawmakers passed only the first leg into law. Faure was frustrated that the language about the required training was weak and lacked criteria, but she said it gives her something to build on.
Idaho schools are making progress toward pulling concussed players off the field and preventing subsequent and more devastating injuries. Teton football coach Bill Vasas said he’s wiser to concussion symptoms than he was three years ago even though he wasn’t Kort Breckenridge’s coach in 2005.
Last year, the Teton coaching staff identified two players with concussions and held them out of competition.
“They’ve done a great job educating us what to look for,” Vasas said. “It’s not just the big hits and the things you associate a concussion with. It’s the little symptoms you don’t even think about. Now, we can look at a kid and say, ‘OK, maybe he’s a little bit off. We’ll check him.”‘
Coaches aren’t doctors. Testing gives coaches a new tool and a way to explain to a symptomatic kid or a frustrated parent why Johnny has to sit out.
But testing doesn’t solve the biggest problem in preventing second and third concussions — convincing players to report the first one.
Looking back, Ray Breckenridge said his son had at least 10 concussions between seventh and 12th grade. As a registered nurse, Ray Breckenridge saw the hits during games, then saw the symptoms at home.
But Kort hid his symptoms as well as he could. A mostly honest kid, he lied to coaches and his father when they questioned why he was rubbing his eyes or uncharacteristically moody or when an A grade fell to a D.
Vomiting after contact is one of the most clear-cut symptoms. Only after Breckenridge nearly died did his teammates come forward with stories about him vomiting behind the bus after games.
Susan Thompson’s five sons have played in the Redskin program. Two suffered concussions. As Faure ran players through the tests, Thompson said she had no faith that her sons would report a concussion even after hearing Faure detail the long-term risks.
“They are boys,” she said. “They are supposed to be tough, so probably not. That’s the scariest part.”
Which raises the million dollar question: If Kort Breckenridge was a senior today instead of 2005, would he be forced off the field to prevent the sequence of concussions that nearly killed him?
Ray Breckenridge said yes.
“No question,” he said. “The testing picks up on things that you can’t fake. I’m convinced if we’d had that in place, we would have picked up those subtle changes early enough that we could have eluded the major ordeal.”
Players embrace a warrior mentality, but concussions can be life-altering.
Teton athletes have a taste of that reality because of Breckenridge. They see him around town and at games. They know what’s at stake.
“If I do get hit, and I do come out, I will feel a little bad about missing some playing time,” Petersen said. “But I know it’s better to miss playing time than to miss out on the rest of your life.”
On Friday on the Teton football practice field, freshman Coner Hoggan told coaches he’d taken a nasty hit to the head.
The coaches directed Coner to the sideline. His eyes were starry. Assistant coach Russell Parsons asked a few basic questions. What happened? What’s your phone number? What are your parents’ names?
Coner paused before answering distractedly.
Parsons pulled his cellphone out of his pocket, called the parents and told them their son probably had a concussion.
On Tuesday, Coner’s head still hurt. His mother, Angela Hoggan, said that once the concussion symptoms subsided, he’d take the baseline test. They’d go from there before deciding when Coner could return to practice.
Angela Hoggan said she was thankful the coaches handled the concussion quickly.
“I’m glad they are concerned enough for students,” she said. “They want to make that a priority. “What is a concussion?
Concussions are the result of a blow to the head that disrupts normal brain function. Body blows that cause whiplash also can lead to concussions.
Some concussions lead to brief unconsciousness. Others symptoms include vomiting, dizziness, headaches and loss of memory or balance.
A severe concussion can be catastrophic and have long-lasting effects. However, subsequent concussions are much more dangerous and likely to affect the brain for months or years. The risk for future concussions also rises with each instance, making contact to the head that would otherwise be light or run a risk for re-injury.
Repeated concussions led to second-impact syndrome in former Teton High School football player Kort Breckenridge. It is a rare condition with a 50 percent mortality rate. Post-concussion syndrome is far more common for repeat concussion sufferers. The syndrome causes prolonged or permanent physical and cognitive symptoms and can also cause mood swings or depression.
Caroline Faure’s website — knowconcussion.org — contains a wealth of concussion research, a written account of Kort Breckenridge’s ordeal and a New York Times video about Breckenridge and concussions.