Broken neck in BJJ Tournament (OUCH)

[jks9199]

Gentlefolk,

Let's keep things friendly and not take shots at each other. MartialTalk is supposed to be a place for FRIENDLY discussion of the martial arts.

jks9199
Administrator

 

[Steve]

For what it's worth, in looking for examples of what is or isn't a slam, I've seen some horrific neck injuries in soccer. @K-man, would you advocate the other guy be sued for everything he's worth in a soccer match where a neck injury occurs? I wouldn't. What about if this were on the football field? Man, I've seen kids injured in some fluke ways and it's sickening to see it whenever it happens, but I truly don't believe we should rush to judgment. We need to remember that there was ANOTHER kid involved, as well. In this case, we have a 15 year old and a 19 year old. Both kids, as far as I'm concerned. And I saw no evidence of malice.

Also, you mention that the move is technically illegal. This is just wrong. While terribly unfortunate it was not an illegal move. I shared an instructional on the technique. I provided some additional insight into what a slam is and isn't. You don't understand and that's okay. But you're digging your heels in and that doesn't help the discussion.

I get that you dislike hearing what I'm telling you, but you're just on the wrong side of this one.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Actually Steve, I vouch for K-man. He is an extremely talented and gifted martial practitioner. One whom I would be happy to have at my back in an alley. While grappling may not be his area of expertise nor BJJ his field of study he is not a novice in this area at all and has worked with high level practitioners in this area. I base this on personally training with him and seeing his movement.

What we all can agree is that this incident is tragic.

Just like this one:

happens around 3:45 or so

and this one which happens almost immediately:

When competing in athletic events tragic incidents will happen. They are tragic for everyone competing and especially for the one severely injured and their family.

Where our energy would be better spent is how to prevent tragic injuries like this. One way would simply not to allow a 15 year old underage male to compete with adult males. Another would be for referees to really be on top of the rules and stop competitors in dangerous positions and restart them. No slams is a good start but referees need to enforce this, stop in dangerous positions and go from there. How they can do this and still incorporate so many advanced guard, open guard, etc. moves I am at a loss to explain. Needless to say the incident in the original OP and the videos I linked could easily happen at any tournament or competition by accident.

 

[Steve]

Actually Steve, I vouch for K-man. He is an extremely talented and gifted martial practitioner. One whom I would be happy to have at my back in an alley. While grappling may not be his area of expertise nor BJJ his field of study he is not a novice in this area at all and has worked with high level practitioners in this area. I base this on personally training with him and seeing his movement.

What we all can agree is that this incident is tragic.

Just like this one:

happens around 3:45 or so

and this one which happens almost immediately:

When competing in athletic events tragic incidents will happen. They are tragic for everyone competing and especially for the one severely injured and their family.

Where our energy would be better spent is how to prevent tragic injuries like this. One way would simply not to allow a 15 year old underage male to compete with adult males. Another would be for referees to really be on top of the rules and stop competitors in dangerous positions and restart them. No slams is a good start but referees need to enforce this, stop in dangerous positions and go from there. How they can do this and still incorporate so many advanced guard, open guard, etc. moves I am at a loss to explain. Needless to say the incident in the original OP and the videos I linked could easily happen at any tournament or competition by accident.

Brian, frankly, he may be the most gifted, knowledgeable martial around, but he knows jack about competitive bjj, and it's obvious. If he were willing to shut up and listen to people who know better, things would be great. But instead, he's trotting out a blog post he found on Google, and because it has the name Gracie in it and kind of sort of supports his half baked position, it must be true,

What remains true is that this was not an illegal technique, was not a slam, and advocating the kid get sued for everything he's worth is despicable. The first two are fact. That last is my opinion.

For the record, that ref did nothing wrong, and could not have prevented this from happening. In a contact sport, whether it's soccer, football, rugby, wrestling or bjj, accidents happen. Sometimes they're preventable and sometimes not. This situation just sucks. It's awful. I just hope cooler heads prevailed and am glad kman wasn't around to make things worse.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Steve, I agree that it was a freak accident. Not a slam and I do not think the referee in this incident could have prevented it. Though there should be training on what to watch for at the very least. What could have prevented it though was having a 15 year old competing against adult men. Tragic incident for this kid and his family but if they had him compete against kid's his own age it might not have happened. I would hope that future tournament organizers look at this closely as I am sure that the person who ran this tournament will be sued. Unfortunately that is how the world seems to work and lord knows that boy's family will need lots of money for his medical bills. I hope he also had good insurance for his tournament because he will probably need it. I think this is also some thing that anyone who teaches grappling should look at as I could easily see this happening in a classroom setting as well. I know I have been in some hairy positions and like anyone who has practiced grappling for a long time I have injuries that I wish I did not have. My worst one was from a neck crank. That one took a long time to fully heal.

So how to prevent an injury like this and yet still grapple? That is a question we can tackle!


* I also feel everyone should try to keep things friendly here as per jks9199 post above! We are all practitioner's here and while we may disagree we can all go about it in a friendly manner. (saying this as a member not a moderator) *

 

[elder999]

Steve, I agree that it was a freak accident. Not a slam and I do not think the referee in this incident could have prevented it. Though there should be training on what to watch for at the very least*

That's a fact. The guy looked a little nonchalant to me, like he could have been paying more attention, if he knew how.

 

[punisher73]

It's the kind of thing that needs to be looked at for tournaments. It is legal now, but maybe do some research on how many injuries occur from this move. For example, heel hooks are illegal in many grappling tournaments due to the high injury rate of them. Many neck cranks are already illegal for the same reason.

Here is a video of a slam, and one that surprises me that an injury didn't occur. But, watching this video and seeing the other one, you can see how it was a fluke accident.

As to being sued. I would have to disagree, an injury occured and a tragic one at that, but there is no evidence that there was ill intent to cause harm and the move was a legal move. If he would have been in guard and picked up the opponent and then slammed him down to the mat like you see in many MMA matches, then you might have a different story.

Not to mention, what about the other guy? He has to live with the fact that he paralyzed that kid for life on accident.

 

[Transk53]

Is there not a apperatus involved where to White belts competing not be able to pull off certian moves? IE, ones that are considered at a next level, or indeed higher belt level, moves?

 

[Zero]

This is purely horrific and a damn tragedy by all accounts.

It's so hard to say, and without an affidavit or script from the guy who pulled the move (for what that is worth), it's more than a little academic for anyone on this forum to be making a strong call as to whether it was legit/without bad intentions or a deliberate illegal move or intended to be a spear/pile-driver.

I couldn't see, did we have a transcript of any kind or sound bite from the guy as to his intentions?

That said, from looking at the clips numerous times for my two cents I am leaning a little to thinking at the least there could be negligence here, it looks like a very poorly performed and ill-intended move. It was performed so badly that injury was a likely outcome. I am the last to endorse suing in a competitive or sanctioned sports/fight environment - but if someone is doing illegal moves or carrying out uncontrolled, negligent techniques (a far greyer area I concede), then I say they may be fair game to litigation. Let a court decide what his intentions were on the evidence and his submissions.

 

[Zero]

It's the kind of thing that needs to be looked at for tournaments. It is legal now, but maybe do some research on how many injuries occur from this move. For example, heel hooks are illegal in many grappling tournaments due to the high injury rate of them. Many neck cranks are already illegal for the same reason.

Here is a video of a slam, and one that surprises me that an injury didn't occur. But, watching this video and seeing the other one, you can see how it was a fluke accident.

As to being sued. I would have to disagree, an injury occured and a tragic one at that, but there is no evidence that there was ill intent to cause harm and the move was a legal move. If he would have been in guard and picked up the opponent and then slammed him down to the mat like you see in many MMA matches, then you might have a different story.

Not to mention, what about the other guy? He has to live with the fact that he paralyzed that kid for life on accident.

I know it sounds crazy but Fedor is Fedor, not many other humans out there like him.

I am struggling to follow your reasoning as to how the Fedor video illustrates the move in the Op's video was a fluke accident though...? Are you saying because Fedor came out unscathed (and won the fight), the fact that a slam, spear or pile-driver is done on someone else should have the same result, otherwise any accident which occurs is a fluke?

The reason spear tackles are banned in rugby is because neck injury occurring is not a fluke, it may be "bad luck" but it ain't a fluke, it happens enough times to merit it being banned. Same reason why same approach in many fight and wrestling tournaments now.

 

[Steve]

Is there not a apperatus involved where to White belts competing not be able to pull off certian moves? IE, ones that are considered at a next level, or indeed higher belt level, moves?

Sure, Transk53, and it's already done to a large degree. In kids divisions, any technique that puts pressure on the spine is banned. For example, in the kids brackets, a triangle is okay, but no pulling on the head to finish. No guillotines. No ezekiels. Nothing that would exert pressure on the spine.

In adult divisions, neck cranks are illegal, and while you can use a can opener within closed guard, you have to let it go once the guard is open (in other words, that's a minor exception to the neck crank, but only because the guy on bottom can relieve the pressure on his neck by simply opening his guard.)

There is also a general principle for kids that tears equal tap. In other words, if water comes out of your eyeball and lands on your cheek, you are done, whether you tapped or not.

I don't fault that referee one bit. That technique is one I've seen countless times, and I've never seen it cause any injury to a person.

If the question on the table is how to prevent this in the future, I'd say the only thing that could have been done (or could be done in the future) is to be more mindful of putting kids into the adult brackets. But even there, I'd say it's case by case, and really provided that the parents, the coaches and the kid were all in agreement and felt he was ready, I can see it.

But the bottom line is this. I think this is a terrible thing, but I'm not convinced that anything like this could be avoided, any more than you can completely eliminate injuries in literally any activity. It's a contact sport, just like any other. Overall, I've seen fewer injuries in jiu jitsu than I've seen in much less time watching youth soccer or football games.

I was at a tournament just this last Saturday here in the Seattle/Tacoma area. It was huge for a single day event. There were over 800 gi matches and close to 450 no-gi matches. No serious injuries and only a few minor ankle twists or sore elbows. This is typical. In 8 years, I've seen two serious injuries. One was a neck injury from a guy who got stacked and rolled funny (not broken, but it was scary). Another was a guy who reached back to catch himself on a takedown, and you can guess what happened to his arm.

I wasn't refereeing on Saturday, but I've reffed in the past. I've been to many, many local referee training camps and have attended the "official" IBJJF seminar in the past as well, down in California. I've seen probably over 10,000 competitive matches in person, some as a fan, some as a referee, and many working the tournament in some other capacity (usually managing the brackets). Referees do look for dangerous situations, and they do anticipate trouble.

I've actually seen referees in local tournaments tell a guy, "Watch the slam." You can see it coming, when they pick the opponent up off the ground. The athletes are all warned about dangerous techniques before they compete, whether it's heel hooks, neck cranks, slams or reaping the knee (which is a big one).

In addition, we make the kids brackets based upon the age, belt and weight of the kids who actually apply. We discourage any child from cutting weight, and try to match the kids up with other kids who are about their same size, age and experience level. It's a pain, but it's worth it, because you don't want a 12 year old yellow belt who weighs 65 lbs grappling against a 12 year old yellow belt who weighs 130 lbs.

My point is, I agree that we should do everything we can to keep people safe, but there's a point where you would have to bubble wrap kids to do this. The only sure fire way to keep a kid from getting injured doing anything is to prevent them from doing everything.

 

[Steve]

This is purely horrific and a damn tragedy by all accounts.

It's so hard to say, and without an affidavit or script from the guy who pulled the move (for what that is worth), it's more than a little academic for anyone on this forum to be making a strong call as to whether it was legit/without bad intentions or a deliberate illegal move or intended to be a spear/pile-driver.

I couldn't see, did we have a transcript of any kind or sound bite from the guy as to his intentions?

That said, from looking at the clips numerous times for my two cents I am leaning a little to thinking at the least there could be negligence here, it looks like a very poorly performed and ill-intended move. It was performed so badly that injury was a likely outcome. I am the last to endorse suing in a competitive or sanctioned sports/fight environment - but if someone is doing illegal moves or carrying out uncontrolled, negligent techniques (a far greyer area I concede), then I say they may be fair game to litigation. Let a court decide what his intentions were on the evidence and his submissions.

The emphasis is mine. I would say you're right, if this was the case.

But people who are familiar with competitive BJJ on this forum seem to all agree that this isn't what happened in this case. We have one guy here, in k-man, who admits to knowing very little about the subject, asserting that the kid should be sued.

Take a look at the instructional video I posted earlier in the thread. If you watch that and then watch the video in the OP, I think it's pretty clear that this wasn't a malicious intent to spike or slam the competitor. Rather, it was a fluke accident occurring in the execution of a common technique. It's a damn shame, too.

To be clear, I don't know whether anyone was sued or not. I just think it would be a shame if that 19 year old kid had to go through that on top of knowing that he severely injured another person. I can't imagine.

 

[Zero]

The emphasis is mine. I would say you're right, if this was the case.

But people who are familiar with competitive BJJ on this forum seem to all agree that this isn't what happened in this case. We have one guy here, in k-man, who admits to knowing very little about the subject, asserting that the kid should be sued.

Take a look at the instructional video I posted earlier in the thread. If you watch that and then watch the video in the OP, I think it's pretty clear that this wasn't a malicious intent to spike or slam the competitor. Rather, it was a fluke accident occurring in the execution of a common technique. It's a damn shame, too.

To be clear, I don't know whether anyone was sued or not. I just think it would be a shame if that 19 year old kid had to go through that on top of knowing that he severely injured another person. I can't imagine.

Hi Steve, the jury is still out, but having looked over that video you posted (thanks for that) several times and revisiting the original Op video, I understand completely where you are coming from, I do agree that it does seem like this would be the move he was trying...

...although by my eye, in your video, the practitioner in your video employed the move with a higher stance in bringing the opponent down as he was flipping so that the opponent was not so smothered into the ground and impacted on by his body weight as compared to the horrific original posted video, where the "flipper" damn well lands with all his weight on the bottom guy in such a vulnerable position. Do you agree? There may still be an argument that the technique was attempted so shockingly from a position or in a manner that could well do damage.

 

[Zero]

I've actually seen referees in local tournaments tell a guy, "Watch the slam." You can see it coming, when they pick the opponent up off the ground. The athletes are all warned about dangerous techniques before they compete, whether it's heel hooks, neck cranks, slams or reaping the knee (which is a big one).

That's a good point and good practice and you as a ref, and even as opponent, can often see/feel it coming. One of my go to techniques which I have quite a bit of success with if I get it on, having drilled it so much, is going to front guillotine when standing/striking/in clinch and then transitioning straight into suplex and either staying arched on my back with a neck extension/crank or coming over and rolling on top as they hit the ground and going for ground and pound in mount. I have on more than one occasion said to my opponent something like "are you ready/get ready" in competition when I am going for the take down, it seems silly for competition but I don't want to be responsible in tournament for damaging someone badly if they aren't ready to fall well.

 

[Transk53]

Sure, Transk53, and it's already done to a large degree. In kids divisions, any technique that puts pressure on the spine is banned. For example, in the kids brackets, a triangle is okay, but no pulling on the head to finish. No guillotines. No ezekiels. Nothing that would exert pressure on the spine.

In adult divisions, neck cranks are illegal, and while you can use a can opener within closed guard, you have to let it go once the guard is open (in other words, that's a minor exception to the neck crank, but only because the guy on bottom can relieve the pressure on his neck by simply opening his guard.)

There is also a general principle for kids that tears equal tap. In other words, if water comes out of your eyeball and lands on your cheek, you are done, whether you tapped or not.

I don't fault that referee one bit. That technique is one I've seen countless times, and I've never seen it cause any injury to a person.

If the question on the table is how to prevent this in the future, I'd say the only thing that could have been done (or could be done in the future) is to be more mindful of putting kids into the adult brackets. But even there, I'd say it's case by case, and really provided that the parents, the coaches and the kid were all in agreement and felt he was ready, I can see it.

But the bottom line is this. I think this is a terrible thing, but I'm not convinced that anything like this could be avoided, any more than you can completely eliminate injuries in literally any activity. It's a contact sport, just like any other. Overall, I've seen fewer injuries in jiu jitsu than I've seen in much less time watching youth soccer or football games.

I was at a tournament just this last Saturday here in the Seattle/Tacoma area. It was huge for a single day event. There were over 800 gi matches and close to 450 no-gi matches. No serious injuries and only a few minor ankle twists or sore elbows. This is typical. In 8 years, I've seen two serious injuries. One was a neck injury from a guy who got stacked and rolled funny (not broken, but it was scary). Another was a guy who reached back to catch himself on a takedown, and you can guess what happened to his arm.

I wasn't refereeing on Saturday, but I've reffed in the past. I've been to many, many local referee training camps and have attended the "official" IBJJF seminar in the past as well, down in California. I've seen probably over 10,000 competitive matches in person, some as a fan, some as a referee, and many working the tournament in some other capacity (usually managing the brackets). Referees do look for dangerous situations, and they do anticipate trouble.

I've actually seen referees in local tournaments tell a guy, "Watch the slam." You can see it coming, when they pick the opponent up off the ground. The athletes are all warned about dangerous techniques before they compete, whether it's heel hooks, neck cranks, slams or reaping the knee (which is a big one).

In addition, we make the kids brackets based upon the age, belt and weight of the kids who actually apply. We discourage any child from cutting weight, and try to match the kids up with other kids who are about their same size, age and experience level. It's a pain, but it's worth it, because you don't want a 12 year old yellow belt who weighs 65 lbs grappling against a 12 year old yellow belt who weighs 130 lbs.

My point is, I agree that we should do everything we can to keep people safe, but there's a point where you would have to bubble wrap kids to do this. The only sure fire way to keep a kid from getting injured doing anything is to prevent them from doing everything.

Thanks. Makes a lot of sense to me relating that to the OP video. Often thought that trying to mitigate someone getting injured by going, and for want of a better term, OTT you have more chance of getting injured.

 

[Steve]

Hi Steve, the jury is still out, but having looked over that video you posted (thanks for that) several times and revisiting the original Op video, I understand completely where you are coming from, I do agree that it does seem like this would be the move he was trying...

...although by my eye, in your video, the practitioner in your video employed the move with a higher stance in bringing the opponent down as he was flipping so that the opponent was not so smothered into the ground and impacted on by his body weight as compared to the horrific original posted video, where the "flipper" damn well lands with all his weight on the bottom guy in such a vulnerable position. Do you agree? There may still be an argument that the technique was attempted so shockingly from a position or in a manner that could well do damage.

Excellent points and you're absolutely right. It's a tough one. Any technique done incorrectly can be dangerous, and I agree with you that this kid executed the technique poorly. But, really, even as I type this, I'm thinking that it happens all the time. Rolling with white belts is crazy. You just never know what they're going to do.

 

[Argus]

When competing in athletic events tragic incidents will happen. They are tragic for everyone competing and especially for the one severely injured and their family.

Where our energy would be better spent is how to prevent tragic injuries like this. One way would simply not to allow a 15 year old underage male to compete with adult males. Another would be for referees to really be on top of the rules and stop competitors in dangerous positions and restart them. No slams is a good start but referees need to enforce this, stop in dangerous positions and go from there. How they can do this and still incorporate so many advanced guard, open guard, etc. moves I am at a loss to explain. Needless to say the incident in the original OP and the videos I linked could easily happen at any tournament or competition by accident.

I agree. To some extent, we just have to accept the risks involved. There are risks associated with anything, be it driving or Martial Arts. You just do what you can to reduce those risks.

I'm not so sure that referees who are more on top of things would be all that helpful, though. These things simply progress too fast for intervention in many cases. I think most accidents like this result first and foremost from the practitioners themselves not being aware of the positions they're putting their opponent in, and the danger present. Any time you have someone's weight resting on their head, neck, and you just crank away without care, you're going to cause injury. It may be more productive to raise awareness among competitors and teachers alike of the kind of injuries that can occur, and the situations they occur in -- perhaps even utilizing footage like this. It gets across the point much more relateably, and relevantly than any abstract "rule" which one is likely to forget or even work around in the moment.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I had a really hard time bringing myself to watch that. I have a visceral reaction to watching video where I know someone is about to get badly injured.

Having finally gotten myself to watch all the way through, Steve is right. The move the guy was trying to do is legal and is safe when done correctly. My instructor uses it against me all the time.

The problem is that he didn't perform the move correctly. The pass works by flipping the opponent over into turtle position, then moving around behind them to continue the attack. In this case the top guy started the flip, but before his opponent was all the way over he dropped his weight into a sprawl. The video is low quality, so I can't tell whether he didn't have proper balance to sustain the lift or if he was just rushing ahead to the next part of the sequence before finishing the first part. (Possibly it was a little of both.)

As far as how to avoid this sort of accident ... I'm not sure. To begin with, I don't teach that move to white belts. I don't trust them to have the control and awareness I would want someone to have when executing that technique. If there were more injuries with the pass, then tournaments might start banning it (or restricting it to higher ranks) , but I haven't heard of other occasions of this sort of accident. Unfortunately, the ref really didn't have time to react and intervene because the transition from legal pass to botched technique resulting in injury happened in a split second.

This sort of thing is why I place such a strong emphasis in my classes on control and safety. Jiu-jitsu is a contact art and accidents will happen, but it's possible to minimize the chances of serious injury with the proper approach to practice.

 

[Steve]

Alright. Found some more information from various websites to share. The information seems consistent, but of course, I can't be 100% sure about how true any of it is, because it's all second hand. It's gleaned from several sites. I'm including a couple of links, but, if you are interested, I'm sure you can retrace my steps pretty easily using bing or google and the information below.

To summarize what I found:

The older kid was 19, named Wesley Marques. The kid who was injured was 15 year old Gabriel Diniz. SBNation provided these and a few other details. It appears from the link above that the issue of waiving underage competitors into the adult divisions has been addressed, and the practice is now banned. That said, I saw a reference to say that these were blue belts, which would explain why the request was made in the first place. We're talking about kids who have at least some fundamental skills, and have been training for at least a year or two.

This site offered some insight into the severity of the injury and the recovery 9 months afterward.

 

[elder999]

I don't fault that referee one bit. That technique is one I've seen countless times, and I've never seen it cause any injury to a person.e knee (which is a big one).
.

Years, and years ago, my employers offered EMT training: in addition to being a nuclear plant operator, I was a plant EMT.

I enrolled in the training because I was refereeing tournaments, and had noted the lack of medically trained refs. I've been an advocate for medical training for referees (in many sports) for quite some time-since my own kids started participating, actually, and I was still...

This ref rolled that kid over. He shouldn't have done that. That's pretty much the end of discussion for me.