Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Patria Hume: AUT Human Performance Professor on the danger of the Run it Straight game

Transcript

Patria Hume: AUT Human Performance Professor on the danger of the Run it Straight game · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: And nineteen year old has died from head injuries after
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  Speaker 1: playing a run It Straight style game with his mates.
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  Speaker 1: Last week. Professor Petrie Hume warned at the risk to
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  Speaker 1: life letting these events continue. She is with us this morning,
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  Speaker 1: Human performance professor at aut Portrayer. Good morning, you predicted
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  Speaker 1: this last week. Sadly your predictions come true.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Ryan's death was preventable. It was a backyard copycat
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  Speaker 2: of the run at events which have been designed for
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  Speaker 2: social media impact. And you know, people need to understand
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  Speaker 2: the risks when two people are running at each other
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  Speaker 2: under this run it style. It's like the forces are jumping,
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  Speaker 2: like jumping off your house, you know, and landing flat
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  Speaker 2: on your front. That's the level of trauma. And so
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  Speaker 2: unfortunately Ryan has died. And I did warn about the
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  Speaker 2: impact forces and that this could happen.
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  Speaker 1: The thing is, these are young boys, right, and I've
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  Speaker 1: been a young boy before, and you do dumb stuff
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  Speaker 1: and sometimes you get really hurt. Do you how do
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  Speaker 1: you stop behavior like that? Because obviously I weren't listening
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  Speaker 1: to you.
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  Speaker 2: No unfortunate at the moment. And it's everyone to make
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  Speaker 2: their own decision about what activities they want to participation.
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  Speaker 2: So if you think about skydiving that has a fatality
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  Speaker 2: rate of one death and one hundred thousand jumps, and
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  Speaker 2: paragliding you know one death in eleven thousand flights. Rugby
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  Speaker 2: Union and League actually death rates are quite low, they're
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  Speaker 2: extremely rare, but we do have high injury rates. My
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  Speaker 2: concern is for these run it type events, we've already
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  Speaker 2: had one death so far with only just about a
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  Speaker 2: month of promotion of the activity. It's an extremely high
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  Speaker 2: risk activity. You're really rolling the dice with your life
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  Speaker 2: and with your risk of injury if you participate. People
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  Speaker 2: have said, oh, it's the fight bull rush. It is
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  Speaker 2: not like bull rush. Bull rush you have someone who
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  Speaker 2: wants to tag and you're trying to evade them. In
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  Speaker 2: this case, you've got two people who are purposely running
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  Speaker 2: at each other with very high impact. There is a
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  Speaker 2: very high risk of injury.
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  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people saying, oh, the police should
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  Speaker 1: get more involved in stuff. I mean, what are they
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  Speaker 1: going to do.
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  Speaker 2: Well can actually intervene, particularly with events. So under the
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  Speaker 2: Health and Safety at Work Adventure Activities Regulations twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 2: event organizers they're legally required to ensure the health and
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  Speaker 2: safety of participants, and as the public, we have a
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  Speaker 2: moral duty to be able to protect em.
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  Speaker 1: Couldn't you then ban a rugby game. I mean, if
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  Speaker 1: it's about the health and safety of participants and people
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  Speaker 1: break their necks in rugby, we shouldn't be having rugby games,
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  Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 2: So if you think about rugby, it's got safety protocols
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  Speaker 2: and it's got very clear governed rules to minimize harm
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  Speaker 2: and protect athletes. You know, we've conducted over thirty years
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  Speaker 2: of research, including with World Rugby and New Zealand Rugby
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  Speaker 2: to try and reduce the risk of injury. And if
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  Speaker 2: you look over the years, there have been changes to
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  Speaker 2: the game to reduce injury risks. So doctor Ken, the
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  Speaker 2: senior scientist from the Zellen Rugby with his PhD, he
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  Speaker 2: did studies to look at how you changed the scrum
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  Speaker 2: and the scrum was depowered and it reduced the incidence
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  Speaker 2: of neck injuries and severe spinal injuries. There's also been
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  Speaker 2: changes to the height of the tackle. I remember in
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  Speaker 2: twenty twelve I had a debate on TV Where's Wally
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  Speaker 2: Lewis about the shoulder charges and why they should be banned.
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  Speaker 2: And while he was completely against them being banned. They
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  Speaker 2: have been banned for many, many years for very good reason,
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  Speaker 2: because they were inducing a lot of injury into rules.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, those rules have changed, and some would argue they
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  Speaker 1: have made the game boring and you get sports specifically
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  Speaker 1: like this popping up and UFC went nuts because it
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  Speaker 1: gives people the first that they craved for body combat.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it's said of the sad reality of human nature.
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  Speaker 2: I mean the mixed martial arts. The death rates has
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  Speaker 2: been twenty deaths recorded already in sanctioned events. So yes,
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  Speaker 2: that's human nature. It's like we have wars as well,
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  Speaker 2: but they are not desirable human attributes. We should best,
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  Speaker 2: don't they. I mean public to come up with ideas.
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  Speaker 2: We need events that are going to be really intellectually stimulating,
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  Speaker 2: develop our minds and bodies that people really want to
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  Speaker 2: participate in, that are not going to kill people.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Fortria, I really appreciate you coming on the program.
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  Speaker 1: Pature whom a Human performance professor at aut For more
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  Speaker 1: from earlier edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news
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