Casey Bass: We have all heard it, seen it or maybe even been a part of it. A kid falls down, trips over the first base and someone yells, you will be alright, just rub some dirt on it. Lock it off. We obviously wouldn't say those things as if we thought or knew that that child was really hurt. So what do you do when you find out the kids hurt?
If you go to any professional or college field and most high-school fields whether it would be games or practices, there's a professionally trained, personal trainer right there to assist with anything that may come up. But as we go to these parks every single day, just your standard wreck league or private league youth field, we don't have those private trainers. So what do you do as a parent and a coach?
Well today, we are going to meet with one of those trainers and he is going to help us become more prepared to deal with injuries, right here on Clubhouse Gas.
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We are so happy to be joined by Keith May. Keith is a certified athletic trainer and also has a Doctorate in Physical Therapy. Keith, thank you so much for joining us.
Keith May: Absolutely, my pleasure.
Casey Bass: We really appreciate you being here. I want to talk a little bit about just in general what happens in a ball park, right. We are here at a baseball park right now, but in general what are the basic injuries that you see as you go out around youth fields?
Keith May: I mean it varies a lot, it really depends on sport that you are doing. Since you mention we are at a ball park, a lot of things you are going to see are scrapes, abrasions, you are going to see some sprains like ankle sprains, strains, muscles pull, hamstrings, quads and that kind of thing.
Casey Bass: Right.
Keith May: Depending on the sport if you go higher more like, higher contact type of thing like a football or cheerleading, you can see concussions, you can see broken bones, you can see neck injuries and really severe types of things. That stuff can happen in a baseball and a lot of contact type of thing but you can see it more often in the higher-contact sport.
Casey Bass: You mention high-contact sports and you said football and cheerleading, you didn't mention hockey, though cheerleading in there is a high-contact sport. Just a side note, you all may know to that, it is kind of important. So what do you as a coach -- I said in the open that you go to a ball event, a college event and most high-school events and there is a trainer on the sideline and all times even in practice. But these volunteer organizations and these volunteer coaches who got these kids out here playing, they don't have that. So what do you as a coach, how do you prepare yourself to be able to do deal with these situations?
Keith May: I think first and foremost you need to be prepared going into the season, you need to know your kids on your team, you need to know which kids have allergies, which kids have diabetes, which kids have asthma and when you know what they have, you need to know how to manage this.
Casey Bass: Well, how do you do that? Do you hire a private investigator to lookup, dig up some dirt on them or how do you go about finding that information?
Keith May: Parents should tell you.
Casey Bass: Oh, that's pretty easy.
Keith May: I mean it should be straightforward, parents should just say, hey, my kid has got asthma and here is one of his inhalers. Keep it with you or I will be at all the games and I have his inhaler if he need it.
Casey Bass: Put that on the contact sheet that would be a good piece of information.
Keith May: Absolutely.
Casey Bass: And at your contact sheet, does this kid have anything wrong with him, everybody to know that.
Keith May: Absolutely.
Casey Bass: Alright, what about a first-aid kit?
Keith May: First-aid kit is important to have as well. I think another piece before we get that far is to say, if you can, if you got the means, try to get a little education under your belt, go take first-aid, go take CPR to see you have got something to hang your head on if you really need something.
Casey Bass: A lot of people think first-aid, then they think resuscitating someone who has been dead for a second. But to me, one of the most important things of first-aid and CPR is how to go through the process of what happens when somebody gets hurt.
Keith May: Absolutely.
Casey Bass: Is that the part of the education that you are talking about?
Keith May: Absolutely, how to manage basic things. They'll teach you how to manage a sprain, how to manage a strain if you are just enough to be able to handle it since -- then you go to the doctor or then you can call 911, you can do that sort of thing.
Casey Bass: But do you believe every coach these days have a first-aid kit?
Keith May: Absolutely.
Casey Bass: So along with all the bats and balls and buckets and helmets, they need to have one of these. Things right there that's what you -- congratulations coaches, you can thank Keith May.
Keith May: This would be more of a first-aid kit on steroids.
Casey Bass: Is Jimmy in here?
Keith May: This would be more of a professional first-aid kit. So this goes a little above and beyond what the basic recreational coach is going to have; definitely over the top.
Casey Bass: But the things -- but you have the things in here that they would need.
Keith May: Absolutely.
Casey Bass: So how about taking us through some of those things?
Keith May: Okay, I can do that, no problem. Always want to have gloves, gloves are huge; just a basic latex, non-latex or a latex-free glove.
Casey Bass: And you want to make sure they fit you.
Keith May: Right! It's not the right size. Those aren't going to fit you; I was to give you the heads up. In these days, a lot of kids have latex allergies. So most people are going to non-latex gloves, but there are still latex gloves out there so you want to make sure you have got non-latex gloves. Not a big difference.
Casey Bass: It is non-protected.
Keith May: Big to have. Another good thing is ice bags and I keep a roll in my bag. I can pull one off, keep moving.
Casey Bass: You know what this looks like; this looks like a grocery bag in the products department.
Keith May: Totally acceptable to use. Typically, when you are at a park, there is ice access. So you have got ice in your water, you have got ice at the things, you can grab that. Another option is the instant ice bags that you can buy and crack them to get cold and it will work. Another thing I think is great --
Casey Bass: Seems a little cheaper than the instant ice bag though.
Keith May: A little bit, little bit cheaper, definitely cheaper side. Another good to thing have is an ace wrap of some sort. This is a small one, just a basic ace wrap that come in different size and shapes. Links, they could double link, single link, big, they have two-inch, thee-inch, four-inch, eight-inch.
Casey Bass: This is well as latex-free.
Keith May: Also latex-free, another good thing to keep in mind. You can use the ace wrap to wrap the ice on so definitely a good item to have in your kit. Band-aids, classic, you got to have them.
Casey Bass: What would you suggest there for the basic coach's first-aid kit as far as sizes?
Keith May: I think strip band-aids you can't wrong with and then it's not bad to have like a pack size in case you get somebody with a pretty decent size abrasion that will cover it. Never a bad idea just to have a roller tape. This is just standard inch-and-a-half athletic tape. You can buy at any Walgreen CVS. You should never know tape is always a good thing to have to -- you never know we are going to need to tape something, if you can tape the ace wrap on, whatever. Another good thing to have is a pair of scissors. They come in different sizes and varieties.
Casey Bass: They come in different sizes and varieties. Okay get along. Alright, just pick one, which one would you suggest?
Keith May: Just pick one.
Casey Bass: Right there.
Keith May: That's probably your basic.
Casey Bass: How much is that going to cost you?
Keith May: A few bucks.
Casey Bass: A few bucks.
Keith May: Not terrible.
Casey Bass: So I'll give you that back. I am just taking your kit completely.
Keith May: Hey, that's cool. We will put it all up later.
Casey Bass: It just goes back in the bag, still a lot of stuff here. There's still isn't very --
Keith May: Not too bad.
Casey Bass: I am doing this because coaches carry a lot of stuff that's what I have noticed. Those guys are --
Keith May: Another good thing to have is gauze, just a straight gauze pad. Good way to stop bleeding, got somebody bleeding, just take your glove on, put the gauze on and get some compression on it and get the bleeding stop. CPR mask, easy one, keychain easy, small. I think it's good to have that as an accessible, Even if you don't need CPR, it's good to have. Somebody, they probably know CPR and they could appreciate using it. A good antibiotic cream is a good thing to have.
Casey Bass: Now these things are just in general for any sport.
Keith May: Correct, just basic stuff. A little basic one to antibiotic cream.
Casey Bass: Alright! So what about when we change sport? This is great for baseball, but what if we go to more high-contact sport? Is there anything we need to add to our kit for a football coach or a cheerleading coach?
Keith May: You may -- I mean depending on your comfort level, if you have had some first-aid experience, it's not a bad idea to have a sling or an immobilizer to be able to make a splint to know how to do that because you do have somebody that has a fracture and you can at least do some basic management until someone is activated in some -- and they have got everybody where they need to be.
Casey Bass: What happens when a serious injury happens, real quick? The kid is obviously hurt, the real quick steps you should take us through to get that kid taken care off.
Keith May: From my end, the first thing I do is I go out there and kind of try to see how the kid is doing. You don't want to touch anything, grab anything, touch anything, you want to have your cell phone accessible in case you do got to make a call you have gotten there with you or you know who has got the phone so you can make the call if you need to make the call. And you're just trying to kind of get an idea of what's going on. Obviously, if there's a bone sticking out, you already know what's going on and you can make the next move. Otherwise, you get a feel for it and try to talk to him, what hurts, what happened; did you trip, did you fall, did you get kick, did you twist something or something pop. Get an idea of what happened and then you can kind of move there. It is kind of a sequence so you can start with what happened and then you move down and based on kind of where they lead you is where you end up.
I think the best advice for recreational coach is if you are not comfortable dealing with it, don't touch it, don't move them, you may have an umpire or parent breathing down your neck but if you are not comfortable with how bad the kid is hurt, don't move the kid. Call emergency, call 911. Even if it's not that bigger deal, it's better than it being a big deal and you make a mistake.
Casey Bass: Well Keith, thank you so much. I am also going to come back and get maybe a little more in-depth in some of the things we talked about today; the bumps, the abrasions, the breaks and the sprains and the allergies.
Keith May: Be happy to.
Casey Bass: Alright! Thank you so much.
Keith May: Absolutely! My pleasure!
Casey Bass: I am Casey Bass. That's going to do it for us today; just a few quick things to help your kids be safer. We will see you right back here next time for great another great edition of Clubhouse Gas.
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