Safety Comes First

Wake up Oregon high schools! Your track and field athletes are using potentially lethal weapons that could be made much safer without any effort.

Of course, track and field involves a lot of activities that are risky, such as pole vaulting, discus, shot and hurdles. But few, if any, of those are as easily changed to avoid injury and few, if any, are as fast and as sharp as the "weapon" in question here: the javelin.

On Friday, Cardinal Kayla Huxoll was hit in the leg by an unprotected, steel-tipped sports spear, a type that has been banned in Washington state for years but is still legal in Oregon (see page 1).

She was participating in the Carnival of Speed, an annual track and field event hosted by Mac-Hi in Milton Freewater.

Huxoll, a junior at Waitsburg High School who counts javelin as her favorite event, was extremely lucky. Although the pointed, fast-flying object pierced her leg above the ankle, it missed the bone and Achilles tendon, squeezing between the two instead.

Doctors are keeping an eye on the wound for a possible infection, but Huxoll is expected to recover in a matter of weeks.

But what if the javelin had hit her a few feet higher? What if her head had been in its trajectory as she bent down to retrieve her own javelin from the infield?

Accidents with the javelin are extremely rare, and our research showed none that were fatal in the Pacific Northwest.

Federal and state guidelines outline a safety protocol that should avoid the kind of circumstances (a suspected lack of official supervision) that led to the accident. At state track and field competitions in Oregon, the athletes aren't even allowed to retrieve their own javelins.

But in the case of the Carnival of Speed, attendees described the scene as tightly packed and very busy with 19 teams engaged in 17 different events, all staffed by volunteers. The accident underscores the possibility of a hitch in the safety protocol.

That is the reason why we believe Mac-Hi and other schools in Oregon should adopt a very simple policy change to reduce the risk of injury from javelin competition: require the same rubber tips on the implement as we do here in Washington.

There is no difference in performance between the two tips. There is no difference in cost. But there is a big difference in safety. There could be circumstances in which the rubber-tipped spear is still dangerous, particularly if it hits the victim in a vulnerable part of the body such as the abdomen or the head.

However, in most cases it would no more than bruise someone instead of impaling them. The rubber-tipped javelins are widely available. None of the athletic officials we spoke to in Oregon could give us a compelling reason why the traditional javelins should not be discontinued.

Ironically, at least three high schools in Oregon recently decided to require the rubber-tipped javelin or lose the manufacturer's warranty on their newly installed artificial turf facilities. If that can compel school districts to switch to another style javelin, surely they can do so for safety reasons.

At the high-school level, the javelin is considered so risky, there are only 17 states in the country that still allow its use, and four of those require the use of rubber tips.

A junior, Huxoll intends to compete in the event next year, but her parents likely will not allow her to participate in the Carnival of Speed just across the state line if the old-style javelins are still in use.

We don't blame them at all. In fact, we recommend that the entire Waitsburg-Prescott track and field team withhold participation in the Oregon meet until the rules in that state, or at least at Mac-Hi, are changed.

Officials from the Oregon State Athletics Association told us a statewide change could only come if requested by its member schools.

Well, member schools, what are you waiting for?

A fatality?