Life & Safety with Jimmy Rios

Headbangers Beware: Spotting Concussion Symptoms You Can't Ignore

• Life Safety Associates, Inc. • Episode 35

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Got your head in the game? In this episode, we're diving into the world of bumps, bonks, and brain busters—aka concussions! Whether you’re on your office ERT team, a sports parent, a weekend warrior, or just someone who occasionally walks into door frames (no judgment here, we've done it too), knowing the signs of a head injury could save you a headache… literally.
 
You'll learn some of the subtle symptoms that are easy to miss, like feeling foggy or forgetting the last play of the game, along with some of the big red flags like dizziness and nausea.

Tune in to find out when it’s time to take a hit seriously and what to do if you suspect someone may have a concussion. Want to know what to avoid during recovery (hint: put the video games on pause!) and how to make sure you're on the safest path back to action? We've got you covered, and we’ll keep it light, because you don’t need any more stress in that busy little brain of yours.

So, before you (or someone you know) decides to just "shake it off," listen up and get the lowdown on how to keep your head *safely* in the game.

Send us a text

Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.

Jimmy:

Well, that's happening. It's your boy, Jimmy, with girl Me Girl Mags, the Life and Safety Podcast. Today we're going to talk about concussions. It's football season, but concussions is not always a football-specific thing. Actually, the most common sport for people to get concussions is actually soccer. You know people hitting the ball. You know using their head to hit the ball. But let's start off with what is a concussion. So a concussion is a brain bruise, essentially when your brain hits the inside of your cranium or inside of your skull during an activity Usually sports things like that. But you can get a concussion from hitting your head on like a cabinet door. You know you have the upper cabinet open and you come up. You're putting the dishes away. You come up and smack. Or you're cooking, you're making that holiday meal, you smack your head on the counter or something like that. We've all been there. We've all been there. We've all done that. So those are just some of the things that happens. This is like the most passive ever.

Jimmy:

Like yeah, uh-huh, immy, keep going Like I don't care. What are you, my wife geez? Oh man, I'm really adding to this podcast you're adding in the humor to my life, egs.

Jimmy:

It's awesome um no, I'm looking up concussions on the web yeah, when you did that, actually I could see the touch spot right there. I was like what is that? It totally distracted me, but it's okay. So concussions you know any hard hit in the head is going to potentially give you a concussion. There's also secondary concussions, right. So if you get hit, like maybe you're tackled in sports or rugby, slide tackled in soccer, you hit the ground and your head just jars really hard, that neck just whips back and forth.

Jimmy:

Like whiplash one might say Like whiplash. You know, actually I had the when my head whips back and forth, when my head whips back and forth. But it's not your head, it's my hair. Right, that's the song. So when that happens, you can also do it in concussion. It may not be as severe, but it could be in concussion.

Megan:

Like the contra costa. No, that's not. That's a place. No, it's the thing where your brain hits the front of your skull and then the back of your skull and then you have it on both sides. It's bad. I totally read about it in my EMT textbook. It's a thing.

Jimmy:

It is a thing, but are you excited about it? In my EMT textbook? It's a thing, it is a thing, but how you excited about it. And you were talking about Contra Costa County. I was like what is happening in my life right now?

Megan:

No, but what's it called? What's it called Something?

Jimmy:

I know what you're talking about, but I'm not sure exactly what the words you're looking for right now. You may want to Google that on the interwebs, since you're on the interwebs.

Megan:

Yep, I'll find it. You keep going.

Jimmy:

Okay, thanks, it is my podcast. So those are just some of the ways to get a concussion, you know. So what are we looking for when we respond? Okay, so we're going to look for altered mental status. So what does that mean? The person may not report or listen or just say you know you're talking to them. They may not just recognize that you're talking to them right away. Okay, they're sluggish in the return. So you're talking to them and they're going uh-huh, what? Oh, you're talking to me, kind of thing. They're spacey. They lose their train of thought. Obviously sudden, severe headaches right after they hit their head. So I guess it wouldn't be sudden but a severe headache. They can't answer simple questions. They're forgetful. They're short-term memory loss. They don't remember where they're at.

Megan:

They don't remember what they're doing.

Jimmy:

Now, if you've taken our classes, we call those the always questions or the level of consciousness questions, because we're always going to ask. You know, we want to make sure the person's with it so we can keep moving and trust everything they say afterwards. Now, with that being said, when you're dealing with somebody with concussions and you're dealing with somebody with just a head injury, you want to keep asking questions, and simple questions that are age appropriate.

Jimmy:

a head injury we want to keep asking questions and simple questions that are age appropriate. So, for instance, when I, you know, coach youth football and around a lot of youth football things, we're going to ask those questions and it's going to you know, got to be age appropriate.

Jimmy:

We've got to say you know what team are you on, what field are you playing, who are you playing? You know, obviously, after what their name is, what's your coach's name, what's your mom's name, and lots of times they'll say mom, which is okay, and if they say that, that's usually a good answer, that's usually a good answer. Now, I always recommend that if you think your young athlete, or any athlete has, you know, had a concussion, to go see a concussion specialist right, preferably a neuroscience doctor, right, or a brain doctor.

Megan:

ASAP.

Jimmy:

As soon as possible. Get on that Emergency room. Doctors are skilled and you know, but they're skilled in lots of things. They don't have that specialty. Try to get that specialist as fast as you can. There's also some school districts with medical advocates that are concussion specialists, so you can get them going too, which is really nice. You get to that and then some things to look for afterwards, especially with teenagers. It's some things to look for afterwards, especially with teenagers. It's really hard because they're moody. You know people that are moody. You know just their sense just kind of flips back and forth, right their demeanor, brightness, light. They become real light, sensitive.

Megan:

And interesting when I had my concussion. I've never heard of anybody else having this, but to me the entire world looked green for like five minutes.

Jimmy:

Yeah.

Megan:

Like everything, just had a green tint to it. Like I put on, like you know, rose colored glasses, but like green colored glasses, Just everything looked green.

Jimmy:

Interesting.

Megan:

And then it was not green anymore, and it was not green anymore, and it was just very odd.

Jimmy:

When I had my last concussion, everything went black and white.

Megan:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, neither of those are good signs, I would say.

Jimmy:

No, no, no, you know. So those are just. We talked a little bit about you know how to identify things. There's lots of really good information out there on the internet Go ahead how to identify things.

Megan:

There's lots of really good information out there on the Internet. One thing that I always see like if somebody gets hit during a sports game, I'll see the coach like go up and look in their eyes.

Jimmy:

Well, if the coach is doing that, that's good, because they're trained, yeah, but they're looking for a pupil response, right? So the pupil, the black part in your eye that opens and closes with light, you want them to both open and close equally. And you want them to both, you know, react. Just when I say open and close, or react equally, I want them to open and close the same speed. I want them to be the same size when they stop, and they may stop by them getting larger or smaller. So this is one of the things you know people love to do the, you know, hold the two fingers things up. That could be indicative of a head injury, but that's usually. It's not an acute head injury, it's not going to happen right away, it's going to happen a couple minutes after.

Megan:

What do you mean by the two fingers?

Jimmy:

So yeah, so what I'm talking about is you'll see people hold up fingers in front of people, say how many fingers I have?

Megan:

they usually have two fingers and it's blurry.

Jimmy:

So to the person that's injured, that's blurry, um. So it's just not a it's not an acute thing, right, it's not going to happen right away. You know that's gonna. That might happen a little bit later so it's not always going to be great. It is a good tool. I'm not saying not to use it, I'm just saying it may not be a good tool immediately.

Megan:

Yeah, and just because they can tell how many fingers there are, it doesn't mean that they're okay.

Jimmy:

And the other thing is too, especially with athletes that have grown up in sports. I guess it Nine out of ten times somebody's going to put up two fingers. So I was told that I actually said the person was holding up two fingers after my last concussion. I don't remember it. I don't remember anything after my concussion except for getting into the lunch line, and after that I don't remember anything until almost two days later.

Megan:

Again, not a great sign?

Jimmy:

no, especially because I got hurt skiing and I drove home from lake tahoe and I remember stopping for gas and that was it yeah, that's not the best I don't remember anything again until the next day, where I'm at Christmas Eve with the wife and her family, and then I kind of remember waking up, kind of and looking around going how did I get here? I know where I'm at, but how did we get here? And then I remember blotches of that night.

Megan:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

No, not the business. And yeah, looking back, it was really bad for me. Now, post-concussion syndrome, it's a big thing. How do you deal with concussions? Your brain has to heal.

Megan:

One of the ones that I hear often is like oh, if they hit their head, don't let them sleep. Don't let them sleep, Keep them awake.

Jimmy:

Nah, let them sleep. That's a new one, let them sleep. Let them sleep. So I'm talking about like post-concussion syndrome is like three or four days, five days, even a month after their concussion. Okay, you know. So people can still have you know symptoms. You know symptoms like I think you've probably heard jenny say I'll start saying something and I'll like kind of short circuit or I'll say a random word, like you. Actually you got me the other like a couple team meetings ago about something and you're like those don't even match.

Megan:

You know um that you guys probably have caught it a couple of times on the podcast, so far I've probably done that a couple times on the podcast.

Jimmy:

So far I've probably done that a couple of times on the podcast and the family you know always refers to that as, oh, concussion brain, because I didn't dare doing that until after I had that last concussion. Sometimes I'll just, you know, be talking and you know this random word will jump in, like Megan called out fish. She's like fish and what you were. It wasn't even like the same thing. Where did that come from? I'm obviously not bitter about that at all.

Megan:

No, I'm not bringing that up like seven times already.

Jimmy:

No.

Megan:

Weeks after it happened, which is a good point. I mean, this is how many months after?

Jimmy:

Years yeah.

Megan:

That should not be a door. We're going to go check that out.

Jimmy:

I will keep you guys company.

Megan:

Anyways, which is a good point is that concussions, the more that you get, the worse the you know end result is A concussion that if it was their first concussion, wouldn't be a bad thing. If it's their fifth concussion, you know, might end up with concussion brain, like Jimmy, which is not something that you would ideally want Not. To say that I'm going on a, I'm spiraling. I'm just going to go ahead and pause. I just went down a really dangerous rabbit hole. You should not leave me alone with an active mic.

Jimmy:

What did you talk about? I was trying to secure the building.

Megan:

Well, thanks for keeping us safe. I'm talking about how concussion the more that you get, the worse off it is. So like a concussion where if it's, you know, like a mild concussion and if it's your first concussion, probably won't have all the horrible long-term events. But if it's a mild concussion but it's your fifth or sixth or seventh concussion, then that mild concussion can have, you know, severe consequences long-term. Have you been questioning words years down the line?

Jimmy:

Absolutely. You know, I grew up in playing sports in an era where concussions were a thing, but they weren't really a thing.

Megan:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

So who knows how many concussions I've actually ever had. And then the last concussion I had when I fell skiing and I literally broke the retaining system out of my helmet. I crashed so hard.

Megan:

Oh, that's not good.

Jimmy:

No, sorry, I just actually had a little flashback from my concussion, looking back when I was in lunch line ordering food and remembering, oh man, my helmet broke.

Megan:

Yeah.

Jimmy:

I just remembered that.

Megan:

Here's a little tip guys If you hit your head so hard that your helmet breaks, get it checked out. Yeah, whatever type of helmet that might be bike, motorcycle, snow helmet, football helmet, baseball helmet baseball helmet.

Jimmy:

Yeah, you should definitely go to the hospital helmets are meant to protect yeah, get ct scanned for sure, um, but you know, lesson learned.

Jimmy:

But to your point, I think that's why I still have such long-term or residual effects. You know, like I, I've always had light sensitivity, but if I walk outside without my sunglasses on it's, it's absolute misery. Um, in the mornings, like when I wake up and I turn a light on it's, I have to shield my eyes or I have to do what I like to. When I used to teach the kids was to do pirate. I like to. When I used to teach the kids was do pirate eyes, like the open one eye first and then kind of open and close the other eye to get the light adjusted. Um, and that was really fun as a kid. But, yeah, so I have to do that, um.

Jimmy:

But the most important thing is trust your body and anything right, trust your gut. But when you have a concussion, like I don't remember and I was actually checked out by a doctor at the ski resort and whatever I said, whatever I did, I was able to. I don't want to say trick the doctor or fool the doctor, but I was able to kind of pass. I was told that the doctor told me I should relax and not do what I was there to do teach classes. But I did it. Apparently, I did a really good job, but you know. But yeah, it's one of those things that you know you got to be careful on. But yeah, it's one of those things that you got to be careful on. So, trust your gut. I would say 99% of the time, except in a head injury. Then you have to trust other people to look out for you. Yeah, because you're going to tell yourself you're okay and you may not be. Yeah, I think that's pretty, it Just be aware. Be aware of those signs and symptoms of short-term memory loss light sensitivity, moodiness, um dizziness dizziness nausea vision changes

Megan:

vision, all of those things, all of those things for sure and I just want to say I looked at it's coop and contra coop oh, okay, so there is a word contra in it.

Jimmy:

That's what I thought you were trying to say, but I didn't want to put words in your mouth and I was like I'm going to walk away from this until Megan looks this up. Yes, yeah, awesome, awesome, all right, team, that's going to be it for this Life and Safety podcast. Take it easy, be safe, peace.

People on this episode

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Jimmy Rios

Host
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Jenny Rios

Co-host
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Megan Dake-Merklinghaus

Co-host