Health & Fitness
Assemblymember Skinner, Young Athletes Raise Awareness of Deadly Sports Injury
Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) is taking steps to ensure greater public awareness of Commotio Cordis, a rare, but potentially fatal, sport injury, occurring most often during youth sports.
On Monday, May 21, the State Assembly passed ACR 47, a resolution by Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) to dedicate the first week of June as Commotio Cordis Awareness Week in California. Assemblymember Skinner was joined on the Assembly Floor by families that have been affected by this potentially fatal condition.
Commotio cordis is a disruption of the heart’s electrical rhythm that results from a blow to the chest during a certain point in the heartbeat. Though its occurrence is rare, commotio cordis can lead to sudden cardiac arrest and death. Most commotio cordis victims, including those that joined Assemblymember Skinner, are young athletes.
Unfortunately, chest pads are not effective at preventing commotio cordis; victims must be resuscitated by CPR or an automated external defibrillator (AED). ACR 47 encourages families and coaches of young athletes to learn CPR, to make AEDs available at youth sporting events, and to recognize the signs of commotio cordis – when an athlete is hit in the chest by an object that leads them to stumble and then fall unconscious, though possibly with a short delay between impact and their collapse.
Two young survivors of commotio cordis came to the State Capitol in Sacramento to show their support for ACR 47. Matthew Henry, an 8-year-old from Rohnert Park, survived commotio cordis in April of this year after he was hit during a little league game and collapsed as he was taking his base. A paramedic and her husband, a firefighter, performed CPR until someone arrived with an AED. That paramedic, Sue Farren, came to the Capitol with Matthew and his mother Linda.
Hunter Cairns, a CSU Long Beach student from Lakewood, collapsed after being hit in the chest by a baseball during a high school game in 2009, when he was 14 years old. His grandfather, a retired Long Beach firefighter, along with another firefighter, performed CPR until paramedics arrived. His grandfather, Jack Lee, as well as his grandmother, Aileen Lee, and his mother, Nicole Cairns, joined him in Sacramento.
