Brent Cordie, 17, was one of the 13 McMinnville High players admitted to the hospital. He needed surgery on his left arm.
Two dozen Oregon high school football players who went to a hospital last week complaining of sore and swollen muscles -- including three who required surgery -- probably suffered from an extreme version of a muscle syndrome caused by intense exercise, sports medicine experts said Monday.
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The syndrome, rhabdomyolysis, often occurs when athletes who have not been training have a sudden increase in the intensity of their workouts, like a return to practice after a summer break, said Dr. Rupert P. Galvez, a sports medicine doctor who wrote a 2008 article about the syndrome.
"It may tend to happen more toward the beginning of the season, as they're starting up their preconditioning training," Galvez said.
The injured athletes in Oregon, members of the McMinnville High School football team, began complaining of symptoms last week after some players participated in what they described as a grueling preseason workout last Sunday held by their coach, Jeff Kearin, who is beginning his first year with the team. Players and their parents told The Oregonian that the players were required to exercise indoors, without air-conditioning, when the outside temperature exceeded 90 degrees. They said they were also given limited access to water.
Heat and dehydration can help trigger rhabdomyolysis.
The school district released a statement from Kearin expressing concern for the athletes' welfare. The team opened fall practice Monday.
Twenty-four members of the McMinnville High School team reported to a hospital with elevated levels of the enzyme creatine kinase, which indicates the breakdown of muscle tissue, and 13 were admitted, said Rosemari Davis, the chief executive of the Willamette Valley Medical Center. Of those, three were found to have compartment syndrome, a buildup of pressure that can develop in extreme cases of rhabdomyolysis.
All but two of the athletes have been released from the hospital, and Davis said Monday that the remaining two were expected to be sent home soon.
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SOURCE: The New York Times
