Little Rock Sports Injury Attorney

Sports injuries involving children and teenagers are on the rise in the United States.  Each year more than 3.5 million sports-related injuries requiring medical treatment occur in children under age 15.  Participation in any sport, whether it’s recreational bike riding or Pee Wee football, can teach kids to stretch their limits and learn sportsmanship and discipline.  But any sport also carries the potential for injury.

Today, as more and more children and adolescents participate in the same sport year round, many young athletes are developing overuse injuries.  In fact, overuse is responsible for about half of the sports injuries that happen to middle school and high school students.  Overuse injuries usually occur over time with prolonged, repeated motion or impact.  They range from chronic muscle strains and tendinitis to stress fractures.

Although sports injuries can range from scrapes and bruises to serious brain and spinal cord injuries, most fall somewhere between the two extremes.  Here are some of the more common types of injuries:

  • Sprains –  A sprain is an injury to a ligament, one of the bands of tough, fibrous tissue that connects two or more bones at a joint and prevents excessive movement of the joint.  An ankle sprain is the most common athletic injury.
  • Strains – A strain is an injury to either a muscle or tendon. Muscles in any part of the body can be injured.
  • Growth Plate Injuries – The growth plate is the area of developing tissues at the end of the long bones in growing children and adolescents. 
  • Repetitive Motion Injuries – Painful injuries such as stress fractures (a hairline fracture of the bone that has been subjected to repeated stress) and tendinitis (inflammation of a tendon) can occur from overuse of muscles and tendons.
  • Heat Related Injuries – Dehydration, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke.  Heat injuries are always dangerous and can be fatal.  Heat related injuries are a particular problem for children because children perspire less than adults and require a higher core body temperature to trigger sweating.

Getting hurt playing sports as a child is not a rite of passage of growing up.  Sport injuries can be very serious and have health consequences that can follow the child into adulthood.  While there will be circumstances when the sports injury was merely a consequence of playing the sport, in other cases, another party may be partly or wholly at fault for the injury.  Some parties who may share legal liability for a child’s sports injury include:

  • The school, school board and school district
  • The child’s coach, referee or team member
  • Sporting equipment manufacturers

Government entities and employees, including schools, enjoy certain immunities from most types of negligence claims.  However, this does not mean that schools and school employees can never be held legally liable for injuries that happen during school sponsored sporting events.

If your child has suffered a sports injury, contact a knowledgeable Arkansas sports injury attorney to learn more about your legal options.  There may be a limited amount of time to file your claim, especially if your claim is against the school district or other local government entity.  The Arkansas sports injury lawyers at the Law Offices of Thomas G. Buchanan have the financial stability, experience, medical knowledge and courtroom track record necessary to make certain that you or your loved one, obtain full and fair compensation.  We will thoroughly prepare each case, review accident and medical records, speak to witnesses and health care providers, access liability and consider all possible legal and medical issues. Call us today at 501-296-9820 for an initial consultation.  There is no fee to you unless we win your case.  We serve clients in Little Rock, South, Eastern, and Western Arkansas.

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