Duane, Is That Right? Is baseball safe?

CINCINNATI (WKRC) - CINCINNATI LOVES BASEBALL:

From the Findlay Market Opening Day Parade to the crack of the bat at Great American Ball Park, no other city celebrates baseball more than Cincinnati.

After all, as an article in the National Baseball Hall of Fame proclaims, “PRO BASEBALL BEGAN IN CINCINNATI IN 1869.”

Flash forward 155 years later, baseball continues to be a hit in the Queen City. Bolstering our love of the game is the perception of America’s “favorite pastime” as a safe sport to play. For the most part, that’s true, but baseball, like any other activity, carries a risk of injury.

SERIOUS INJURIES BY THE NUMBERS:

The National Safety Council (NSC) tracks injuries in sports and recreational activities for all ages, including serious injuries that result in trips to emergency rooms. In data collected from 2022, NSC found that exercising and bicycles were to blame for the most injuries.

Basketball topped the list for organized team sports with 313,924 injuries that sent players to the ER. Football was next with 265,747 players sent to the hospital. After, skateboarding, playgrounds, and swimming pools, soccer was to blame for 179,284 injuries that sent players to emergency room.

Baseball and softball barely made the top ten list, with 173,6874 injuries that resulted in trips to the ER. That’s 56% fewer serious injuries than basketball, and half of the number of football. Still, the number of serious injuries in baseball and softball are surprisingly high for a game we perceive as safe.

PARALYZED IN AN INSTANT:

At his home in Vanceburg, Kentucky, 52-year-old David Iery faces me in his motorized wheelchair to talk about the sport that changed his life.

“They say baseball is a safe sport. What do you say?” said Local 12's Duane Pohlman.

"It can be, if it's done right," responded Iery.

For David, who was a star player on Lewis County High School’s baseball team, it went very wrong during a game in Grayson, Kentucky on April 1, 1989.

“Yes, on April Fool's Day!” said Iery with a smile, hiding the melancholic moment.

On that fateful day, David was on third and threatening to score when a teammate hit the ball. David ran right away toward home plate, but had an obstacle in the way.

“The catcher was blocking the plate,” David recalled, saying that he thought of simply running into him to get him out of the way.

Instead, David launched himself into a headfirst slide. In an instant, triumph on the baseball field turned tragic.

“I tried to go around him a little bit and caught his shin guard and snapped my neck,” said Iery in a matter-of-fact recollection of an instant that forever changed his trajectory in life.

David lay motionless at home plate that day, his spine broke at C4 and C5. He couldn’t move and was struggling to breathe. Over long months of rehabilitation in hospitals, he accepted that he was now paralyzed for the rest of his life.

ON A MISSION TO MAKE BASEBALL SAFER:

After decades of not being able to even attend a baseball game, David finally returned to the sport he loved, committed to making it safer. In 2017, he founded the David Iery Foundation which funds spinal cord research and teaches young boys and girls safer ways to play, including lessons on how to slide safely.

David is often a guest speaker at youth baseball games, talking about the dangers of sliding headfirst.

"We do this so you guys won't make the same mistake," David tells a team of young players gathered around him in a video posted on Facebook.

"Are you saying never, ever slide headfirst?" Duane asked.

"Yes, Especially home plate," Iery responded.

BASEBALL HAS HIGH RATE OF FACE, HEAD INJURIES:

While catastrophic injuries like David’s are rare, they do happen.

According to data from Truveta,baseball and softball have the highest rate of face and head injuries of all sports and the second highest rate of concussions and traumatic brain injuries.

While much of America’s attention is rightly focused on preventing catastrophic injuries in contact sports, like football, it’s important to know there is a risk involved in playing baseball (and softball), too.

Just ask David Iery, who will give you this very simple answer about the consequences that can happen in a moment.

“There's no cure for spinal cord injury,”Iery said.