Has anyone else heard about this? USC running back Stafon Johnson suffered a crushed larynx and neck on Monday after the bench press barbell slipped out of his right hand onto his neck. An immediate tracheotomy had to be done in order for the Trojan to breath. Stafon underwent 7 hours of surgery at a Los Angeles hospital. He's listed as in critical but stable condition. You can read the article at ESPN.com http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=4516365.
What confuses me is that he was being spotted and the assistant strength and conditioning coach was only a mere ten feet away. In any case, if he was being properly spotted, the spotters would have been able to catch the bar and prevent it from landing on his throat and at least landing on his chest. "I've seen players have the bar slip and fall onto their chest, but never in my 25 years of coaching have I heard of someone dropping a bar on their throat," said head strength and conditioning coach Chris Carlisle, "We're fortunate he was being spotted." I heard this story on Sportscenter this morning and i figured he wasn't being spotted and was lifting improperly.
From my knowledge when bench pressing, the bar should be firmly on your palm more proximal to the wrist rather than being held by the fingers because this can cause someone to 1.) break there wrist or 2.) drop the weight on them self. So i feel that the strength and conditioning coaches should have done a better job educating the athletes on the proper way to bench press and also, how to spot another athlete. Most likely, there was a single spotter while he was lifting some near 300lbs... This is a lot of weight for one person to be spotting, if anything a two person spot from each end of the barbell is necessary. The article doesn't imply if there was more than one spotter but i can assume that there wasn't or that they weren't paying attention for this to have occurred.
Thankfully, doctor's say that the surgery was successful and Johnson will be able to return to football, yet the timeline isn't quite clear.
I'd be curious to see what kind of hand placement the spotter was using. If he was using an alternated grip it is fairly easy for the spotter to miss the bar when the lifter drops it. Nonetheless, it's still an unfortunate situation for Johnson. Hope for a speedy recovery.
ReplyDeleteFrom what i understand, he won't be able to talk again. The question is who is at fault? The spotter or the head/assistant strength and conditioning coach. As an athlete this brings my own training into question, all the times i have ever taken my attention away from a lifter or lifted without a spotter. After this story i know i will never take spotting for granted again.
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