High body temperature, dizziness, lack of sweat, hyperventilating and inability to control breathing. These represent symptoms of heatstroke; when over-exposure to extreme heat causes your body to overheat.
These are also symptoms of which were present when Jordan McNair, 19, of the University of Maryland football team had a seizure during an organized team workout on May 29. McNair passed away two weeks later after receiving a liver transplant.
Since the incident, there are concerns over student athletes pushing themselves beyond their limits during training sessions and games in extreme weather conditions. With teams at Longwood University conducting late summer training sessions, athletic trainers are taking extra precaution in the amount of time teams spend outdoors.
According to Longwood Director of Sports Medicine Carly Fullerton, she’s had athletes experience full-body cramps and has taken trips to the hospital due to heat illnesses, but none have been permanently damaging. She ensured all trainers at Longwood are aware of all symptoms and protocols to ensure player safety in extreme heat.
As a Division I member of the NCAA, Longwood Director of Athletics Troy Austin said the department has tried to set up protocols so games are able to be adjusted for heat illness prevention and allow institutions to manage their individual sport contests.
According to Austin, the NCAA has pushed institutions to educate its own student-athletes on the warning signs of heat illness in order to prevent similar incidents.
“It’s really educational pieces and reminders to NCAA membership institutions about how to manage student-athletes in preparation and enduring extreme heat,” said Austin. “It’s the school and the coach’s responsibility to go overboard about communicating and promoting how to do it. It’s ultimately the student-athletes’ responsibility to implement that instruction.”
Although student-athletes’ are responsible for following through on the instruction and taking care of themselves, Austin ensured athletic trainers at Longwood are well-prepared for extreme circumstances.
“Every staff member who interacts with a student-athlete in a training situation has to be CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation) certified before they have any interaction with a student-athlete,” said Austin. “The athletic trainers through their certification are already CPR certified.”
He continued, “It is (the athletes’) responsibility, but we also don’t leave them devoid of safety nets.”
Austin said a safety net would be an athletic trainer being present with an in-season team to let coaches know if a player looks uneasy on the field, and pushing them to take more water breaks during their training sessions. Longwood field hockey coach Iain Byers said he’s tried to work his practice around days of extreme heat to minimize the amount of time spent outside.
According to Fullerton, protocols for treating athletes who experience heat illnesses depend on the severity and type of illness they’re experiencing.
“Usually heat illness is described as three different levels, so basically you start out with heat cramps,” said Fullerton. “Then you get heat exhaustion which would be the next level up which you’re looking at sweating but they’re a lot more red and flushed… and then you have heatstroke which would be the severe side of that when their body temperature starts getting up above 104 degrees.”
The University of Maryland has been under fire since the incident due to the concern their training staff didn’t follow their specific protocols in responding to McNair’s symptoms. In fact, there is an hour of unexplained time where nothing significant was done to avoid complications. At the time of his collapse, his body temperature was recorded at 104 degrees, constituting his condition as heatstroke. In the event of a player suffering from a heatstroke, they must be cooled down immediately to bring their body temperature down, according to Fullerton.
McNair arrived at the hospital an hour and a half later with his body temperature raised to 106 degrees, showing nothing had been done.
According to Austin, the NCAA is continuing to work on new protocols for extreme weather, as they recently added an extra break in each half of soccer matches to ensure players are drinking enough fluids to prevent heat illness.
The NCAA implements extra breaks to protect players when training in high temperatures
