The Sports Institute

We work to expand participation and safety in sports
and physical activity

Spine Injury in Sport

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The GamePlan: Managing On-Field Cervical Spine Injuries is free to watch and share for educational use. It has been viewed more than 100,000 times and integrated into medical and athletic trainer educational programs worldwide. 

This is one of three films in The GamePlan Series. View the full series. 

Our GamePlan films are fully donor funded. Donor support makes it possible for us to continue growing this library. Make a gift to support future films.

If used in presentations or added to webpages, please credit: The Sports Institute at UW Medicine. If shared on social media, tag us @TheSportsInstituteUW on Facebook or use our full name on LinkedIn. 

Motivation

A suspected spinal injury in an athlete on the play of field requires a well-practiced and coordinated emergency response.

 

Approach

Led by NATA and in collaboration with the NCAA, The Sports Institute faculty Dr. Stan Herring developed updated recommendations for on-field spinal injury management for athletes. These guidelines were created by the Spine Injury in Sport Group (SISG).

To accompany those recommendations, The Sports Institute produced this training film. It is a practical tool for athletic trainers, emergency medical professionals, and anyone involved in athletic event emergency response.

The updated guidelines are published in two-peer reviewed papers in the Journal of Athletic Training, co-authored by Dr. Stan Herring.

Consensus Recommendations on the Prehospital Care of the Injured Athlete With a Suspected Catastrophic Cervical Spine Injury 

Best Practices and Current Care Concepts in Prehospital Care of the Spine-Injured Athlete in American Tackle Football 

Our Next Move

Want to stay up to date on the GamePlan film series? Sign up for our email list. 

Our GamePlan films are fully donor funded. Donor support makes it possible for us to continue growing this library. Make a gift to support future films.

 

Partners

Film Partners: The Distillery, Harborview Medical Center, National Athletic Trainers Association (NATA), Seattle Medic One, UW Athletics, UW Medicine.

Research Publication Partners: Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center (HIPRC), NATA, National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Special thanks to Cliff Avril, former Seattle Seahawk and All-Pro Defensive Lineman. Cliff experienced a cervical spine injury in 2017 and has been a strong advocate for education on this topic.  

Articles 

American College of Emergency Physicians Spine Injury in Sports, May 3, 2021. https://www.acep.org/by-medical-focus/sports-medicine 

New Recommended Techniques For Treatment Of Athletes With A Suspected Cervical Spine Injury https://hiprc.org/blog/new-recommended-techniques-for-treatment-of-athletes-with-a-suspected-cervical-spine-injury/ 

Disclaimer 

The purpose of this film is to provide recommendations for initial evaluation and emergency care, safe transfer of the spine-injured athlete to a definitive care facility, and minimization of further injury. This film is intended only as a guide to all members of the sports medicine community, and, as such, is of a general nature, consistent with the reasonable, objective practice of the health care professional. It is not intended to be used as a standard of care. Ultimately, clinical management decisions remain at the discretion of the responsible medical professionals, and are dependent on the specific injury scenario and availability of qualified personnel and resources at the time of injury. 

Copyright 

Copyright © 2020 The Sports Institute at UW Medicine and University of Washington. All rights reserved. 

License 

This film is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Free to share for non-commercial educational purposes with credit to The Sports Institute at UW Medicine. No modifications or commercial use permitted. View license.