Player’s Death Pondered

Eric Hoggatt complained of dizziness and loss of feeling in his legs Thursday, and Dr. Michael Hollander insisted that Hoggatt stay on the sideline during the final minutes of Reseda High’s 41-0 loss to Chatsworth.

Sometime during the night, Hoggatt died in his sleep. He was discovered by his mother early Friday morning.

Hollander could not be reached Friday, but other team physicians spoke about the difficulty they have making instantaneous decisions during the heat of a game.

“Two things scare the pants off of us,” said Mel Hayashi, for 23 years the team physician at Newbury Park High. “One is head injuries, and the other is heart arrhythmia.”

Numbness and dizziness indicate injury to the head or spinal cord, said Sanbo Sakaguchi, a general surgeon and the Alemany High team physician of 30 years.

“If [a player] comes out and complains of severe dizziness, you know it is a head injury,” Sakaguchi said. “He doesn’t play any more. It’s pretty clear-cut.”

Hayashi, a Thousand Oaks-based orthopedic surgeon who also has served as consultant to the U.S. Olympic team, said that head injuries are classified by severity.

“Symptoms range from loss of memory to headaches to loss of consciousness,” he said. “I want to know if injures have been repetitive during a game or during a week.”

Hayashi tests the player’s memory by asking him his assignments on specific plays.

“I have him stand beside me the whole time he is out of the game,” he said. “I keep asking questions, and will keep him out until I am certain he is responding properly.”

Even when a head injury is not severe, Hayashi tells the player’s parents to wake the player up twice during the night.

Hoggatt complained of dizziness and loss of feeling in his legs, but his mother said she was not notified of the symptoms.

“Why didn’t they notify me? I could have waited and taken him to the emergency [room] to check him out,” Verna Hoggatt said. “I don’t feel that was right. No one called me.”

Although the California Interscholastic Federation does not mandate that a physician be present at athletic events, many teams would no sooner start a game without a physician than without a referee.

North Hollywood games have been delayed because a doctor was late in arriving, Coach Gary Gray said. In each case, officials would not allow the game to be played without qualified medical personnel present.

Coaches routinely defer to the team physician when the safety of a player is in question.

“If our doctor says a player cannot play, we don’t argue the point,” Gray said. “Sometimes we don’t agree. . . . If a player is complaining that his head hurts, that’s the doctor’s call.”

Many team physicians, like Hollander and Hayashi, are orthopedic surgeons familiar with injuries most common in football: broken bones and hyperextended joints.

Yet diagnosing neurological problems can be beyond the scope of their expertise. The most-experienced team physicians learn to recognize symptoms of head injuries, and err on the side of caution.

The most basic form of prevention can keep head injuries to a minimum, Hayashi said. The padding of the most-common football helmets is made of air pockets, which must be inflated.

“Eighty percent of injures occur because the player did not fill his helmet with air,” he said.

Proper blocking and tackling technique reduces injuries. A player putting his head down and making contact with the top or back of his helmet is leaving himself open for head or neck injury.

Still, eliminating injury is all but impossible. Physicians are rarely present at practices or at freshman and junior varsity games.

“If schools would supply certified athletic trainers who were present at practices and games, that would be a big help,” Hayashi said.

“But that’s not where the money goes.”

Contributing: Staff writers Rob Fernas and Paige A. Leech.