Safety Roll!!!

[GetaGrip]

Yesterday I was on floor when I heard possibly the loudest, most painful sounding shriek I have ever heard at gym. When I looked over, I saw that a level 2/3 (probably around 8 years old) had fallen off beam and broken her arm.

And she didn't just crack the bone. She broke both bones in her forearm. And it bended in half.

She didn't safety roll.

While I'm sure that most people know how important it is to NOT stick your arms behind you when you fall, this is just a reminder, a plea, to every one asking them to please remember their safety rolls!!!

I've only seen two people really badly break their arm (one at school on the playground) and both of them stuck their arm behind them.

Sorry if this seems a little confusing or unnecessary to ask. This was just probably the worst thing I've ever seen at gym, and the girl is going to most likely need pins and/or plates in her arm.

 

[bookworm]

I think it's just instinct to stick your arm out to break your fall ...my son did it and broke his arm in just the way you describe during a baseball game ...when he came up screaming, and I saw the odd angle his arm was at, I knew we were in trouble....the concept of safety roll is a nice one but I don't know how often you'll actually see it.

 

[iwannacoach]

It should be done frequently at levels 1-5 and often enough at levels beyond that the kids know to expect periodic review and practice. It won't prevent every injury, but it will reduce the number of them.

 

[gymdog]

I think it's just instinct to stick your arm out to break your fall ...my son did it and broke his arm in just the way you describe during a baseball game ...when he came up screaming, and I saw the odd angle his arm was at, I knew we were in trouble....the concept of safety roll is a nice one but I don't know how often you'll actually see it.

Honestly...I have done it a lot and have never broken an arm (that's possibly luck). But if you've ever timered on some surfaces (even expecting it)...it HURTS your head. I've probably saved myself from a concussion a few times. For early level skills I'm sure it's best and I review it and have the kids practice every class.

 

[niklum]

I've seen 2 bad breaks in all my years in the gym, and one of them was exactly what you described. My heart went out to the little girl who fell off beam 20 years ago. Since then, I've been adamant about teaching safety rolls. They are necessary and they do save arms. Not to mention, preventing concussions. I teach safety rolls in early levels and remind team kids constantly how to fall. When I have someone who is a little resistant, I describe that arm (the image is ingrained in my memory) and they tend to comply pretty quickly.

 

[profmom]

I think most but not all accidental injuries can be prevented by teaching kids how to bail out of things safely. My DD had fallen off the balance beam uneventfully approximately 1 billion times, but one day at practice, she stuck five full turns, got her legs tangled up on the sixth, and fell off and took her full weight on her arm, which snapped like a toothpick. She knew the techniques and had executed them successfully many times, but everything just went wrong for that one fall.

When I think of the number of child-hours my kids have spent collectively in that gym and the number of times each has fallen off various and sundry apparatuses, I have a lot of appreciation for the safety training they do. Out of all of those thousands of falls, only one led to a serious injury.

 

[CoachGoofy]

I teach safety rolls...we call it falling practice. They start with practicing with straight jumps & move on to practicing with saltos eventually.

 

[MaryA]

We had a bad injury in our gym last week. Girl's foot slipped going into a beam dismount (front tuck or back tuck... not sure which)and rather than bailing, she went for it. Mom is concerned about allowing her to come back (after the 6 weeks minimum recovery time) because of her fear about WHY her daughter didn't bail... and if it's likely to happen again. And this wasn't during a competition or even during a "getting ready for competition" time of the year, when you'd think a kid might be pushing herself to go for it no matter what... just regular practice with months and months till the next meet. Is this something you can train for? I know they teach saftey rolls, and how to get out of giants-gone-wrong and such. But other than just saying, "If something doesn't feel right, bail" can you "practice" bailing out of a good skill gone bad?

 

[J&A's mom]

When I was at girl scout camp in Wyoming, I was thrown off a galloping horse into rocks. I would have been seriously injured had I not known how to fall. Thank goodness for gymnastics, where I learned how to fall. See, gymnastics helps in all areas of a person's life!

Sorry about the terrible fall at your gym, Getagrip. Sounds really scary!

 

[hawaii_gymnast]

Safety rolls are a must! As well as break and prone falls, thats why we teach them here in beginner rec levels and never stop, to prevent these!
And marya we are taught that if you punch off them beam you have to pull not bail because by the time you realize that a foot has missed you already have rotation and can land on your head easier. Punch and flip, tuck it in tight if your not flipping fast enough and go to but/hand and knees

 

[Pineapple_Lump]

"If something doesn't feel right, bail" can you "practice" bailing out of a good skill gone bad?

The worst falls I have seen are from girls who bailed on beam dismounts. Their bodies opened up and they stop suddenly when they hit the floor. That is a lot of force being placed on one part of the body (arm, shoulder, head). As Hawaii gymnast said tuck up and pull it over and continue rolling when you hit the floor to absorb impact.

 

[MaryA]

In this instance, knee connected with mouth, so... not tucked hard enough? I know of another nasty fall where knee connected with eye.

 

[iwannacoach]

IMO, you're safer trying your best to finish a skill with 100% effort, once you've started it. Any moment of indecision or re-calculation is going to put the gymnast into foriegn territory with respect to timing and body positions. About the best you can do is to train the fall positions we most commonly see at the end of skills, and try to eliminate as many of the mid-skill "exceptions" as possible with good judgement and guidance for the kids.

After all that's been done, accidents will still occur at any time on any skill. Like the kid who, during her career, had done about 15,000 back handsprings on floor....walked into the gym for practice one day teasing that it was Friday the 13th, and practice should be cancelled for saftey's sake....in less than 15 minutes she had broken a finger while doing....a back handspring on floor!!

 

[gymdog]

We had a bad injury in our gym last week. Girl's foot slipped going into a beam dismount (front tuck or back tuck... not sure which)and rather than bailing, she went for it. Mom is concerned about allowing her to come back (after the 6 weeks minimum recovery time) because of her fear about WHY her daughter didn't bail... and if it's likely to happen again. And this wasn't during a competition or even during a "getting ready for competition" time of the year, when you'd think a kid might be pushing herself to go for it no matter what... just regular practice with months and months till the next meet. Is this something you can train for? I know they teach saftey rolls, and how to get out of giants-gone-wrong and such. But other than just saying, "If something doesn't feel right, bail" can you "practice" bailing out of a good skill gone bad?

It's quite a bit safer not to bail. If she was doing for instance RO double back off beam and foot slipped, then safer to bail in the sense of doing a single salto or timer. But trying to completely stop after initiating a salto is generally not safe. My guess is her foot slipped going into a front tuck and she landed still tucked with her upper body moving forward. Unfortunately basically nothing you could do and no way to bail once going forward like that because you can't really just nosedive at the floor. The only thing the kid could do is separate her legs which is the best option. Dive roll could have potential but also potentially very dangerous from a height. Honestly if that is what it was, it sounds like bad luck unfortunately but not many bailing options except separating the legs or trying to land more on her butt. It could have been backward I suppose because I gave myself a black eye doing a timer once (I really don't have any excuse here because it wasn't like I was trying to do something, slipped, and ended up doing a timer...I was doing an intended timer, and I wasn't inexperienced at them). But it would be less likely to have a face and knee connect so dramatically backwards so that's why my guess is forward.

Also, forward dismounts are popular and perceived as easy (which really=less scary, so the kids will do them more readily). I do not like them in level 7 and 8 and think cartwheel/back tuck is the way to go (and more easy to transition to front in level 9/10 than to waste time going back to cartwheel and roundoff dismounts then. But anyway the point is she won't necessarily HAVE to do this dismount.