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House Bill Addresses School Sports Safety And Protocol

Fayetteville teams face off in 2013. Credit: Gerry Dincher via Flickr

North Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would address school sports safety awareness. The legislation also calls for more documentation of serious sports injuries among middle and high school students.

House Bill 116 is being co-sponsored by Forsyth County Representative Donny Lambeth, one of the legislature's health care experts, having served as president of North Carolina Baptist Hospital for three years.

Lambeth tells the Winston-Salem Journal the bill has three main goals.

It would direct local and state school boards to raise awareness and recognition of sudden cardiac arrest and heat-related illnesses.

The state board would be required to establish a public database on serious sports injuries.

And existing concussion safety protocols would be enhanced.

Lambeth says the new guidelines are meant to strengthen existing procedures and track situations where students might be at higher risk.

If the bill passes, the new standards would take effect at the start of the 2017-18 school year.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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