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American Morning
How Do You Keep Your Kids Safe as Sports Become More Extreme?
Aired August 15, 2002 - 08:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: On to some medical news now, the action- packed sporting competition called X Games gets going in Philadelphia. Radical and dangerous stunts abound, including and involving bicycles, skateboards and all kinds of things teenagers naturally gravitate to.
So how do you keep your kids safe as sports become more and more extreme? Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here in house with some advice.
Good morning.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
Yes, these games have become so popular, it's amazing. Since they started in 1993, these games between 6 and 17-year-olds are the second most popular sporting event total, the most appealing, second only to the Olympics, but ahead of the World Series, the Super Bowl, the World Cup, things like that.
And without question, these are also pretty dangerous sporting events as well. As you can see here, I think that was a McTwist. I have some terminology that I've learned researching this particular story as well, But a lot of different sporting events, including things like inline skating. And the problem with some of these sports, like with inline skating for example, you have lots of injuries, 65,000 injuries or so a year.
Most of them are just cuts and scrapes, but almost half of them are actually broken bones. Seven-thousand of them are actually head injuries. So there's a lot of injuries that come about with these extreme sports, and a lot of these kids are fearless when it comes to participating, either in inline skating, skateboarding, as we see here, or a lot of the other events, so there's a little concern with this inaugural.
ZAHN: What about kids that are trying out less extreme things? I see it in the park all the time. There are kids wearing their blades and no helmet.
GUPTA: That's right, and you know, it's amazing. Kids have gotten a lot better about wearing helmets, I think due to a lot of the encouragement from doctors and other folks out there, but these types of devices absolutely are very, very helpful, there's no question about it. People are trying to pitch them the same way as they pitch seatbelts. Not everyone wear their seatbelt still. But if you wear these things, for example, elbow guards and wrist guards, as you see here, they actually will decrease those sorts of injuries, wrist fractures even, by 85 percent. The helmets you mentioned, Paula, this is actually the official helmet of the extreme games.
ZAHN: Much improved, because they ventilate better. That was part of the reason why people didn't wear helmets before, because they were so darn hot.
GUPTA: Absolutely. And I'll tell you something else, they're pretty cool looking as well, which is really important.
ZAHN: Major fashion statement as you're protecting your brain.
GUPTA: And look at this helmet, this is the BMX helmet here. You got this thing going around the front here. The reason they have that, is actually if you fall and hit your jaw, it can actually get knocked out, unless you have one of these chin strap across here, which was a real problem for a lot of BMX riders. This is an official BMX riding helmet.
ZAHN: That's really mean looking.
GUPTA: It's kind of cool looking. Kids like to wear it. And you'll see a lot of it over the next few days in Philadelphia.
ZAHN: Now, let's remove ourselves from extreme sports for a second, because a lot of kids in America, particularly on those scooters are getting injured. I think the Pediatric Association saying that's one of the most recording injuries right now, the razors and the scooters and all that stuff. If your kids are injured, advice for those parents, as well as the parents of the extreme athlete.
GUPTA: Right, well, I don't want to conjure up too much fear here, because these sports are here to stay no question, and most of the injuries will be cuts and scrapes, but there are a lot of fractures of the arms and legs. And if you notice a fracture, obviously, you need to get your kid to the hospital.
Short of that though, if you have swelling around that, here's a little acronym that's important to remember for most injuries. It's called "RICE." And basically it's rest, ice, compression and elevation. People are always asking me, hot or cold? Within the first 72 hours cold, ice, and keep it elevated as well. That will keep the bloodflow down and keep the swelling from actually getting too bad in that area. That's sort of a simple acronym to remember, but most of the time, like I said, it's just going to be cuts and scrapes.
ZAHN: You know what's better than ice for kids?
GUPTA: What's that?
ZAHN: Bags of peas, frozen peas, because it's a little easier to mold around the leg and the ankle.
GUPTA: Do you eat the peas afterwards?
ZAHN: No, we usually don't do that, but believe, we've treated with lots of bags of frozen peas in our household. Do you do any of this stuff?
GUPTA: I don't skateboard, but the other thing I want to you is I have tried snowboarding, and I know Bill has tried snowboarding as well. And I actually had a couple of terms, if we could throw those up on the screen real quick, that I learned: the McTwist, 540-degree turn actually upside down.
ZAHN: And you do the 540-degree turn.
GUPTA: Don't do the 540-degree turn.
ZAHN: Can you do a 180?
GUPTA: I don't think so. I've landed pretty hard a few times trying that on a snowboard, but...
ZAHN: The half pipe.
GUPTA: That's really popular with the snowboarding now, and the quarterpipe is just a quarter of that.
ZAHN: And the tweak was the last one?
GUPTA: The tweak is something for everybody. The tweak is something that you just add a little something to a sporting event or to a live segment here on television, anything.
ZAHN: We love to tweak you. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you. Stay safe. Wear your helmet.
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