ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County Public Schools is exploring the use of special technology in football helmets to improve safety.
The sensors being considered track the force of a hit and notify trainers when to check players for injuries.
The district said it could add the sensors to each of its football helmets, but it's still exploring the topic.
Youth football coach Chris St. John, whose son plays football for an Orange County school, said the sensors can be added to the inside of the helmet and they can transmit information to those on the sidelines in real time.
The football stadium at Orlando's Jones High School was quiet Thursday, but when players take the field in the future, their helmets could be equipped with the special sensors.
"You can drill down to the specific time, and it monitors the spikes inside of any collisions that occur inside the helmet essentially," St. John said.
"I think it would be great to have it in youth football," he said. "The challenge with it is it's costly."
The district said it's exploring the technology for 20 high school teams.
The impact monitors would track the force of hits and immediately alert trainers when to check for head injuries.
Two Flagler County schools have used the system since 2016.
"We see concussions, fractures, sprains," said Dr. Elizabeth Davis, of Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children.
Davis, who practices pediatric sports medicine at Orlando Health, said the systems are a step in the right direction, but she said more research should be done.
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"I still think we need to collect some data to see how the sensors work, how they are measuring and monitoring the hits that the kids are taking, and then correlating that with kids actually sustaining a concussion or a traumatic brain injury," she said.
Orange County is searching for companies that could supply and install the technology. There's no budget or time frame, and the district must first decide to move forward with the project.
The district said there is a form that is kept in a student's file when they sustain a head injury, but it's not public record, so it's unknown how often students get injured.
Thursday is the deadline for companies to bid on the project.
The technology would track the force of a hit and immediately alert trainers to check a player for head injuries #WFTV
— Michael Lopardi (@MLopardiWFTV) May 24, 2018
Cox Media Group
