[fruit_cake]

A boy of 16 died yesterday after being hit by a cricket ball thrown by a fellow pupil.
Friends and teachers rushed to help Kyle Rees when he suffered the blow to the side of his head while in the school playground.
The year 11 pupil collapsed and was taken to hospital unconscious, dying a day later with his mother, Tanya Cooper, by his side.
Immediately after the incident at lunchtime on Monday police cordoned off the school and interviewed potential witnesses.
They arrested a 16-year-old on suspicion of manslaughter and released him on bail yesterday.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz1nlIWeFsN

[fruit_cake]

what a terrible tragedy

[Benjamin]

Was the ball thrown on purpose at the boy or was it a pure accident?

[Kazanne]

I got hit in the thigh once by a cricket ball,those things are lethal,I had the biggest bruise ever,what an awful thing to happen to this lad,if it had hit him anywhere else he most probably would have been ok,so young too,terrible for his family,does anyone know if the ball was thrown at him or was it a feak accident?

[fruit_cake]

it says it was an accident, but if the perpetrator is getting done for manslaughter it seems likely there is more to it.

[joeysteele]

What a tragedy,cricket balls are dangerous though, at my school a lad was hid by one accidentally and it split his head open.

[fruit_cake]

there seems to be a big debate in the comment section with half of the people demanding the banning of cricket balls and the other half condemning those that want to ban them

What on earth was going on in a playground for somebody to get hit on the head with a cricket ball, who knows.

[Kazanne]

Originally Posted by fruit_cake

it says it was an accident, but if the perpetrator is getting done for manslaughter it seems likely there is more to it.

That's what I thought,I heard they had arrested another 16 year old,but only caught parts of it.

[thesheriff443]

i know its a school,but why did he have the cricket ball?.its horrible what ever the outcome, when i was at school a boy got punched in the temple,he had to have emergency surgery beacuse it caused a blood clot on his brain.

Killing someone through gross negligence is manslaughter, which is what this potentially looks like.

Throwing a cricket ball around a playground is a stupid thing to do, but it all depends on the circumstances.

[MTVN]

Sad story, cricket balls shouldn't be banned though, things like this are incredibly rare

[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Sad story, cricket balls shouldn't be banned though, things like this are incredibly rare

I agree with you plus we don't know how this really happened yet.

[thesheriff443]

i did cricket in school,in the sports hall when the weather was bad,its scary to have a ball bowled at you,you have long nets each side of you so you feel like your in a tunnel,and when that ball bounced of the concret floor,its like holy sh*t.

[Jordan.]

The article has been updated now and says it happened during a playground brawl 'Fellow pupil tells how 30-40 pupils threw chairs, footballs and shoes in brawl' So it sounds like it was thrown intentially to hurt someone, disgusting. Poor lad.

[Scarlett.]

I was scared to death of cricket balls at school, seriously, real cricket balls should really be used by proffesionals and be collectors items, you might as well be throwing an iron weight at someone.

[Jack_]

Hopefully now these ****ing children realise how pathetic they are behaving. And I can only hope the person who threw the cricket ball realises what a moronic sheep he actually is.

An awful tragedy, RIP

[Marc]

Oh wow, that's a horrible story. It's not much you can do if it was by accident, I mean a cricket ball is supposed to be played with and if it hit somebody by accident whilst people were playing with it then... ?

But obviously if it wasn't by accident then it's a horrible thing to do. The kid will have to pay a big price for their immaturity

[Jords]

If they were mucking about like mates playing catch I feel so sorry for the kid who threw it. The guilt must be eating him alive.

Awful tragedy resulting in a massive waste of life. R.I.P

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Chewy

I was scared to death of cricket balls at school, seriously, real cricket balls should really be used by proffesionals and be collectors items, you might as well be throwing an iron weight at someone.

It would be a bit stupid to restrict cricket balls to professionals, that would pretty much kill the village game and junior cricket as well, I've never once seen a serious injury and even a hit to the head will only very rarely cause serious damage

[Omah]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket..._cricket_balls

A cricket umpire died in 2009 in South Wales after being hit on the head by a ball thrown by a fielder.

Numerous injuries are reported to health institutions, worldwide, in relation to cricket ball injuries including ocular (with some players having lost eyes), cranial (head), dental (teeth), digital (fingers and toes) and testicular.

http://albioncricket.co.uk/safety.html

25% of all cricket injuries are to the head, neck and face. Mainly being concussions, contusions and lacerations. An injury to the face by a cricket ball is one of the most common types of hospital treated injuries in cricket.

http://www.teachpe.com/sports_injuri...t_injuries.php

Hand and finger injuries
Injuries to the hand or fingers usually result from a player catching the ball. Ligament sprains, fractures and dislocations are all common.

[King Gizzard]

Think they should be limited to use in P.E class where there's a teacher supervising it, they really hurt whereever you get hit if you're not paying attention

[MTVN]

Originally Posted by Omah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket..._cricket_balls



http://albioncricket.co.uk/safety.html



http://www.teachpe.com/sports_injuri...t_injuries.php

Of course there's injuries, that's the case in any sport, but they're far from common, and with all the protective gear available nowadays it's quite rare to get serious hurt.

Obviously it isn't a good idea to be chucking one around aimlessly in a playground though

[Angus]

As sad and tragic as this incident is, there is no need for ridiculous knee jerk reactions. Already in playgrounds around the UK children are reduced to shuffling around at break times with nothing to do because skipping ropes, footballs, conkers, climbing frames, tennis rackets, etc etc have all been banned in case someone has an accident.

Thank goodness I was a child in an age when all this mollycoddling didn't exist, and kids were allowed to grow up with a strong and healthy approach to independence, personal responsibility was encouraged, and freedom to enjoy their leisure time without the Health and Safety bleeding hearts brigade sticking their oar in.

If this is a result of a playground brawl that is hardly something that occurs every day now is it? If it was an act of malice, then the perpetrator could just as easily have thrown any hard, heavy object. Don't blame the cricket ball, blame the moron who threw it.

[Patrick]

Horrible, just horrible.
R.I.P

[Omah]

Originally Posted by MTVN

Of course there's injuries, that's the case in any sport, but they're far from common, and with all the protective gear available nowadays it's quite rare to get serious hurt.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...01457510001867

Injury to recreational and professional cricket players

November 2010

Abstract

This paper describes injury (circumstances and type) experienced by sub-populations at all levels of cricket and, where possible, the type of protective equipment used. The sample differs to that generally examined in the literature in that it is not restricted to evaluation of elite and professional players only. Over a 6-year period (2000–2005), 498 cases were identified. The average age of injury was 27 years and 86% of those injured were male. The population incidence rate was 2.3 per 100,000 per year, and participation incidence rate 39 per 100,000 per year. Over all age groups upper limb (36%) and lower limb (31%) were most commonly injured. Fracture was the main type of injury. Differences among age groups were identified. Children (<10 years) most commonly suffered head injury (contact with the bat); 10–19 year olds, head, upper and lower limb injury (in similar proportions) generally from contact with bat/ball; those over 20 years mainly had upper and lower limb injuries. Contact with the bat/ball was the dominant mechanism of injury for those under 50 years of age while overexertion, strenuous or repetitive movements, slips and falls were the mechanisms for those over 50. The large number of head injuries to children is of concern and both these, and the substantial number of injuries to the hand/phalanges (63% of all upper limb injuries), are important targets for injury prevention.