CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A local car dealer has contributed a grant to help Driscoll Children's Hospital detect and treat concussions at an area school.
Driscoll's Heads Up: Concussion Care for Kids Program at London ISD is getting a boost with a more than $500,000 grant from the Toyota Way Forward Fund, in collaboration with Mike Shaw Toyota.
"The partnership . . . gives us the ability to bring new technologies to the community that will help us in early assessment and providing care for concussion management on the sidelines of our student athletes in Corpus Christi," said Driscoll Children's Hospital's Director of Orthopedics and Sports Medicine clinics Dino Scanio.
Scanio says the grant will also allow them to add trainers with the goal of eventually being able to provide such care for all local school athletes.
Hannah Sutton currently is a senior athletic trainer at Driscoll Children's Hospital Sports Medicine program.
She said it's important for athletes' parents to understand the signs of concussion and to know how to respond properly.
"What's the signs we need to look for? What are the red flags? Is this something that he needs to go to the emergency department right now? Or is this something we can hold off?" she said. "Let these symptoms calm down and get them to the specialty clinic that they need."
Sutton is one of four trainers who actually checks injuries on the field, and helps doctors diagnose any concussions an athlete may suffer at London ISD.
"Uncontrollable vomiting, unable to balance themselves, coordination, walking off the field, a headache that keeps progressively getting worse, a loss of consciousness," she said. "You always want to send them to the emergency department for that. Seizures can be a part of it, memory loss."
The goal is to return athletes to their sports activities.
"That's why these types of technologies that we're bringing to the community will help us gauge that and make sure that we're making a safe and healthy decision before an athlete is released back to play," Scanio said.
"Should one concussion be a reason for an athlete to stop playing? We know now that it's not just the one hit that causes it," Sutton said. "It's the repetitive forces."
A formal presentation of the grant will be held later this week.
