Study takes deeper look into severe high school sports injuries

Plenty of medical studies have been done to show which high school sports produce the most injuries, but a new study in this month's American Journal of Sports Medicine takes a look at severe high school injuries based on sport, gender and injury type.

Defining a severe injury as one that keeps an athlete out of action for at least three weeks, the study took a look at high school injury data from 2005-'07 and found that 14.9 percent of all high school injuries are "severe."

Among the findings:

• As one would expect, football accounted for the most severe injuries. After that, wrestling, girls basketball and girls soccer had the highest number of severe injuries.
• In the sports in which both boys and girls compete in (soccer, basketball, baseball/softball), girls had a higher injury rate than boys.
• Severe knee injuries were the most prevalent (30 percent), following by ankle (12.3) and shoulder (10.9) injuries.
• Another item of note, five percent of all severe injuries were a result of "illegal player activity," like tripping or spear tackling.

-- EDUARDO A. ENCINA