Brittany Price, Bishop McGuinness’ athletic trainer, hosted training sessions this week with the Kernersville Fire Rescue Department for the first time at the Villains’ football practice field in preparation for sports starting on Monday.
“In athletic training, we are really big on being preventative with injuries. Whether it’s heat-related, whether it’s biomechanics, teaching proper techniques, whether it is landing, jumping or things of that nature, just doing a lot of things before practice, whether that’s them taking care of their bodies, getting stretched, getting rehab, getting anything prior to the sport to keep them healthy,” Price said. “And I think a big part of athletic training as well is not just only taking care of the athletes but practicing our emergency care.”
In 2018, Price graduated with a master’s of science from Lenoir-Rhyne, passed a board exam and obtained a required licensure from the state of North Carolina. That same year, Price began working for Novant Health and was outsourced to Bishop McGuinness.
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Price said she had a conversation a few weeks ago with David Willard, the KFRD Battalion Chief of Training. The department’s fire station is five minutes from the Villains’ campus and its personnel are on duty for football games and other athletic events, in addition to responding to calls in emergency situations.
Sessions have been on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They have been at 11 a.m. and have lasted about an hour. Different days were chosen to allow firemen with different shifts to attend.
The sessions included practice for C-spine immobilization situations, equipment removal for football and lacrosse and cold tub immersion for heat exhaustion or heat stroke. The hands-on experience involved McGuinness sports medicine program volunteers putting on equipment and going into the cold-water tub.
Price said Willard did a good job organizing his group, so the process was easy. From there, the groups simulated 911 calls, driving routes to the facility and techniques for treating athletes. Scenarios of athletes being face-up and face-down were addressed as well as different movements such as lifting and log rolling.
“I did get some feedback from each group, and they loved it,” Price said. “They were very attentive, they asked a lot of great questions just to make sure that they were understanding everything from an equipment standpoint because, again, they don’t see football equipment all of the time or lacrosse equipment.”
Eight fireman attended Monday, six Wednesday and nine Friday. Price said the first session went well and she would be open to the idea of expanding it to include other athletic trainers and personnel in the future.
“We chatted yesterday (Wednesday), and we were actually really excited and started brainstorming about making this a bigger event,” Price said. “And if we do that at the firehouse, we can probably collaborate more with EMS, get some other athletic trainers out in the community to come by and do it that way.”
“I think as the years go on, it’s always going to be cool to see if we can expand it and make it bigger and get more people involved,” Price said.