When a hard unforgiving object is too close to a playing area for there not to be a risk of collision
What happened?
Bath City striker Alex Fletcher was playing in a match against Dulwich Hamlet when he crashed into a concrete advertising hoarding around the perimeter of the pitch.
Fletcher suffered a serious head injury, and the match was abandoned.
The 24 year-old needed surgery and was in a coma for five days following the accident, but was been cleared to play again, nine months after the accident.
Reflecting on the accident, Fletcher said his family had been given stark warnings about the possible extent of his injury. “My surgeon gave them the news that if I made it through the surgery, which was a slim chance as it was, I might not be the same person. I might not have use of my legs. I might not even remember my family because of where the impact was.”
Legal Outcome
N/A
What can we learn from what happened?
When managing safety, and when investigating accidents, it is important to remember that under the same or similar circumstances, any head injury, no matter how major or minor, has the potential to be a fatality.
Sadly this line of thought comes true in another case study in this month’s library, when a footballer did die.
Alex Fletcher expressed his frustration at what he considered to be a lack of action regarding the hazard presented by concrete perimeter fences a year after his accident, and is now working for the PFA’s (Professional Footballers Association) Brain Health Department where he visits clubs educating players on the importance of looking after their brains.
Whether the issue of the proximity of hard perimeter fences, or any hard objects, around football pitches or indeed any sporting environment when a player may be moving at speed with limited control, is being looked at is not known in any detail, but is an area of interest.
The author once witnessed a potentially serious head injury when a female cricketer was running full pelt to prevent a ball reaching the boundary, and in her efforts crashed head on into the wheel of a sightscreen that was just to close to the playing area. This must be an accident that is not uncommon in club cricket.
Source of Information
BBC Sport Online – note the name of the victim and the football clubs concerned have been included as this story was extensively reported in the media.