Dick Tuthill <[log in to unmask]> writes:
>     A couple of hours after the evening news,  I started to reflect on what
>I saw.   Not having access to a replay of the incident,  and having turned
>on the news just then by accident anyway,  my memory may be fuzzy.   But it
>seemed to me that the root cause of what happened lay in the glancing
>contact Travis made with an opposing player 3 to 5 feet from the boards.
>  In other words,  in "no-man's land",  the most dangerous part of the ice.
>  Am I correct,  and if so,  what does that teach us?   It would be good if
>coaches and other experts who have seen the tape in detail could supply an
>analysis for this discussion list.   Just what are the lessons learned?
 
I think it is good to ask these questions.  But, I believe the reason
we have not seen a discussion of what "caused" it or how to teach kids
to prevent it, is that there really is nothing you can point at as
something that should have been done differently.  Some may disagree
with me, and that's fine...I believe it was, unfortunately, just one
of those things.
 
Being in "no man's land" really has little to do with it.  As we know,
Travis was not pushed or tripped into the boards.  I suppose about the
only thing one could "learn" from this is that you should stay 5 feet
away from the boards at all times to really insure that this doesn't
happen, but of course that is not realistic.
 
Here is a quote from the Portland paper article that was up on the web
yesterday.
 
-----
Barry Trotz, coach of the American Hockey League's Portland Pirates,
saw the play on television. ``It wasn't something that could have been
prevented,'' he said. ``Every time one of these things happens, the
story is, `Could it have been prevented?' I don't think so.''
-----
 
>     The second observation I'd like to make is that as an engineer,  I felt
>somewhat appalled that we don't yet have equipment to protect the neck area
>from this and other types of injuries.   The flex collars that you see
>linemen and some fullbacks wear in football would be a point of departure if
>one wanted to design something  --  would they not?
 
Again, I think that a discussion on equipment has not taken place
because there is no piece of equipment (that I can think of) that
would have helped here.  A flex collar would not have helped Travis at
all.  The way I understand it, his injury occurred because he hit the
boards with the top of his head, compressing his spinal column and
crushing his fourth vertebra.  (Perhaps some people were not aware of
this...I repeat it not because I want to, but because I believe it is
good for everyone to understand what actually happened.)  His head did
not snap back as in most spinal column injuries that we are familiar
with, nor did he take a perpendicular blow to his neck.
 
Sunday I was down at Merrimack and we were of course talking about
this.  It is ironic that you bring this up, Dick, because before I
heard anyone begin to talk about prevention, I said, "The first thing
you think about when something like this happens is, what kind of
equipment or protection can we add or change to prevent this from
happening again...but there really isn't anything."  The folks I was
talking to (from HE and from Merrimack) agreed.
---                                                                   ---
Mike Machnik                 [log in to unmask]           [log in to unmask]
Cabletron Systems, Inc.                                    *HMM* 11/13/93
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