Sidelined for safety: new laws keep student athletes with concussions benched.

• Author: Foreman, Megan

The world went dark for Zackery Lystedt hen he was only 13. With two minutes to go in the first half of a junior high football game, he raced up the field to block the opponent's sprint for the end zone. He made the tackle, but when the dust cleared, Lystedt was on his back in the end zone, holding his helmet and moving his legs slowly. He did not lose consciousness and soon walked off the field.

He returned to the game in the third quarter, taking hits on offense and defense. Just after the game ended, Lystedt's world went dark. He screamed to his father that he couldn't see and about the searing pain in his head. Then he collapsed.

When the dust cleared this time, Lystedt had undergone two major brain surgeries and was in a coma on life support. The coma lasted more than a month. For nine months, the only movement he could make was to blink for "yes" and "no." The feeding tube lasted 20 months.

More than three years later, Lystedt remains in a wheelchair but is able to speak, with some impairment. His sense of humor is intact, but his life and the lives of his parents will never be the same. His catastrophic traumatic brain injury was preventable. If he had not gone back in the game, his first concussion could have healed properly. The Lystedt family is committed to ensuring that another young athlete does not have the same fate.

GROUNDBREAKING LAW

The Washington Legislature passed the Zackery Lystedt law in May 2009. The first of its kind, it requires young athletes playing or practicing on public property to be removed from practice or competition if they are suspected of sustaining a concussion or head injury. The athletes must then be evaluated and cleared by a licensed health care provider trained to evaluate head injuries a definition that includes certified athletic trainers--before returning to play.

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Richard Adler is the former president and current chairman of the Brain Injury Association of Washington and one of the lawyers who represented the Lystedt family. He lobbied for the law's passage.

"Catastrophic brain injuries in sports are preventable," he says. "We may never be able to prevent concussions in contact sports, but we can prevent kids from returning to play with concussions."

When it passed, Washington's law was the strictest return-to-play law in the country, but brain injury experts are encouraged to see other states following suit.

Oregon passed a similar law in July 2009, and so far in 2010, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Virginia passed Lystedt...