In American high school football, the issue of neglected concussions is becoming bigger and bigger by the second. Athletes with “ding” or hit their heads in a practice or a game and shake it off and continues to play. Doctors highly suggest that regardless how hard the head is hit, the athlete should always get it checked out.

Nationally, football players are getting extremely injured and even dying. High school football player Andre Smith died because he was involved in a head-on-head collision with an opponent on the other team and later collapsed. Early Friday morning Smith died due to sleeping on a concussion.

Between 2005 and 2014, 92 football players died which was indirectly linked to football. This shows that concussions need to be taken more seriously.

Experts are saying that if concussions aren’t taking more serious, the number of deaths due to concussions will go up drastically. Dr. Wooten stated that the main reason the number might to go up is because athletes do not want to lose playing time so the stay in even though they are extremely injured.