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I am pretty sure that most people are catching onto the trend that most the people that have been getting hurt lately have been doing so by hitting their head on hard surfaces around the pole vault pit. (ex. a concrete pad under the mats that is not completely cover, asphalt runways, or in some cases just a pole vault pit sitting on a blacktop!).

When someone hits their head on a hard surface like that and is seriously injures/dies there is no excuse for that and you can argue a helmet all you want but if you hit your head on grass or rubber (for the most part) your not going to crack your skull open. I mean there are a few cases where people land directly on head and break neck or in the box or something but those are extremely freak accidents.

Is there someone on this message board that has good enough connections that could propose a rule change that would ban all hard surfaces around the pole vault pit. Maybe say there has to be like 10 feet around the pit where there is no hard surface. And if you have an asphalt runway there must be a rubber roll out mat over it and all exposed asphalt within 15 feet of the box must be covered with pads?

The rules already state that the standard bases need to be padded, and there needs to be a box caller around the box. After 2002 the pits were also required to be wider and longer and there has been very few catastrophic injuries since then. So basically all of the concrete around a pit is already legally supposed to be covered. Do to budget and sometimes negligence though this is not always the case. The problem is each time new safety rules are added a lot of schools only option is to cancel there vaulting program due to lack of funds. Also there seems to be a lot of emphasize on facilities, when a lot of injuries are due to a lack of knowledge. Which is why a couple of years ago It was made so that all high school coaches have to get a safety certification. The only hard surface left is the box, and currently Jan Johnson's working on a project to pad the sides of it making only a very small portion left where you can hit your head. If you have any safety concerns he is the national safety chairman and therefor would be the one with the most influence to make those changes.

The only hard surface left is the box

In high school at my confrence championships we vaulted at a school that had a fenced in blacktop that was about 110ft by 110ft. At one end sat the mat, and they had put a box into the asphalt, then they rolled out a rubber runway from the box to the fence (we had like 88' of runway, just enough for me to do 7 lefts if i stood with back to fence). They had a box collar and standard covers.

By the rules this pit is 100% legal. But it was not safe at all. Anyone that missed the mat would land on asphalt. If you had to bail there was no where to land and roll. No matter how much coaching there is or how experienced of a vaulter you are, sometimes you just have to bail out of a jump, and you want to be able to find the softest spot possiable.

VaultPurple wrote: ... No matter how much coaching there is or how experienced of a vaulter you are, sometimes you just have to bail out of a jump, and you want to be able to find the softest spot possible.

Good point. To add to this point ...

I like the extra safety precautions that KC has taken to protect his vaulter Annie in this practice vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3UAe_SVN5Q

You can see that the box is nicely padded with a collar, and that he's added extra mats to the front buns ... far in excess of HS rules.

However, starting at about the 1:20 mark of this vid, just about every jump shows a fiberglass pole lying on one of the buns. On many of these, there's also a PERSON sitting on the bun next to the pole. Yikes! Now there's an accident waiting to happen! Have you ever landed on the crossbar when you miss a jump? It's HARD! Vaulting poles are even HARDER!

A couple days ago (I forget which thread it was), I saw a vid of a practice where the pit and everything around it looked safe, except that there was a CONCRETE BLOCK lying next to the runway ... well within reach of a vaulter falling on it if he stalled out. Duh!

It takes very little effort to recognize a safety hazard like a pole or a concrete block lying within range of a vaulter's "landing area" ... which VP quite rightly points out is MORE than just the pit dimensions ... and just MOVE IT OUT OF HARM'S WAY!

It should be the joint responsibility of every COACH, every ATHLETE, and every OFFICIAL to ensure that there's no hard objects within 5 feet (or so) of the edges of the pit ... ALL AROUND the pit!

I don't know how many times I've moved crossbars and crossbar lifters away from beside the pit ... too many times to count. Why? Because I figure that out of every thousand vaults, there will be ONE vault where someone misses the pit. THAT'S the vault that you need to plan on. Don't assume it WON'T happen ... assume it WILL happen. Then plan accordingly.

For their own safety, every vaulter should REFUSE to jump until ALL objects ... poles, concrete blocks, crossbars, lifters, hurdles, whatever ... are at least 5 feet away from the edges of the pit.

It doesn't take any TIME to clear the area ... it just takes some TRAINING and some awareness of the hazards.

Been there ... done that ... have the broken nose, lost teeth, concussion, and severe bruises to prove it.

Kirk

I believe that both high school and college rules require all hard and unyielding surface around the pit to be padded.

This is a tricky situation... some pits are right next to the track. So if we said there has to be perimeter padding 5' around the mat, that would be a MAJOR problem. Every facility is different, and it's tough to legislate something that works for everyone.

And how much do we need to define hard and unyielding? Even something relatively soft can cause major damage if you hit it hard enough. I don't consider Field Turf to be hard and unyielding, but Chase Kear nearly died when he conked his head on it with great force.

We don't need new rules, we need the existing ones to be followed.

I like the extra safety precautions that KC has taken to protect his vaulter Annie in this practice vid:

In high school at my conference championships we vaulted at a school that had a fenced in blacktop that was about 110ft by 110ft. At one end sat the mat, and they had put a box into the asphalt, then they rolled out a rubber runway from the box to the fence (we had like 88' of runway, just enough for me to do 7 lefts if i stood with back to fence). They had a box collar and standard covers.

You can see in my video we have something similar to what you are talking about. We had to do this because we didn't have a track so we had no other options. That's why the first day we set it up I went and found some old high jump mats and put them in the front of the pit. Also i put one in the back of the pit two since the pit slanted down hill I didn't want people going off the back. (Although as kirk pointed out we have gotten a little bit lax with the safety.) I do the same thing when I show up to track meets. I get there a couple hours early and the first thing I do is make sure all the marks on the runway are correct, also I write out 1 ft increments from 30-40 so my mid can be seen from anywhere in the stands. Then I go and make sure the standards are zeroed correctly and that they are padded. If I feel the front buns don't come out far enough I find someone at the school to see if they have any old high jump mats or anything laying around, you can always find something to at least make the landing a little softer, also I make sure the box does not have debree in it that is going to be harmful to the pole. My point to this is it is everyone's responsibility to make sure the facility is as safe as possible. I'm not a coach or an official, or any of the people that are expected to worry about this stuff, I'm just an athlete but still I try to make sure the best I can that things are safe because I know it will help my confidence will vaulting.

That being said I still hold onto coaching being the number one safety issue. I was one of the most dangerous vaulters out there coming out of high school. However when I got out of high school and went and trained with Jan Johnson, he told me Im going to jump his way (safely) or I was not going to jump at all. But still that transition year even with all the safety precautions available being taken, There was still a lot of missing the mat, landing on the track and pain just because of my bad habits. However once I learned to jump safely This went from a weekly thing to a 1 or twice a year thing. And now as a result I'm only holding 3 inches higher then I did in high school but jumping 2ft 2inches higher. So i'm going to stand by that the number one factor in safety is coaching and that when you make a jump safer you make a jump better. (This means get rid of the grip and rip mentality you can jump very high with a low grip (In fact I have been at several meets where a high school athlete or even sometimes a college athlete was over bending a pole but not getting into the pit and almost every time I have convinced these athletes to lower there grip and jump safely they have gotten a pr) Some basic rules you should follow: If a pole does not get to vertical you need to go down a pole or lower your grip, only go up a pole if the pole is getting at least a foot past vertical, if the pole bends past 90 degrees lower your grip, develop technique from a short run moving back one left at a time before you develop it from a long run, Personally I almost never have good enough feeling legs to go from a long run in practice, and always warm up completely following some sort of skill progression.) These are only some of the ways a coach can make vaulting safer but you get the idea.

rainbowgirl28 wrote: ... So if we said there has to be perimeter padding 5' around the mat, that would be a MAJOR problem. Every facility is different, and it's tough to legislate something that works for everyone. ... We don't need new rules, we need the existing ones to be followed.

RG, you completely missed my point.

I didn't say ANYTHING about new rules. I was only referring to keeping the pit perimeter clear of CLUTTER. If I'm going to miss the pit, I'd rather land on a FLAT surface ... hard or soft. I don't want to land on a concrete block, a crossbar lifter, a hurdle, or any other foreign object that does not need to be within 5 feet of the pit.

I'm simply talking about everyone using COMMON SENSE and SELF-POLICING!

KC demonstrates a good example of this!

Kirk

Kirk, I was replying to the question posed by the original poster.

rainbowgirl28 wrote: ... I was replying to the question posed by the original poster.

Well, your post immediately followed mine, and you referred to "5' around the mat" ... like I did ... whereas the original poster referred to a 10' perimeter. If you were referring to his post, I would have expected you to refer to his "10 feet around the mat" idea.

Kirk

My girls had to compete at another conference school because the school holding the meet doesn't have a pit. This was my first trip to this school because we never sent our vaulters to this school for dual meets because it's almost an hour and a half away.

I got there late only to find a number of problems. The pit was pre 2003. They had added side buns to make it legal but the top cover didn't cover the added buns. Along the back, they had six feet of concrete. The coach said that we didn't need to cover it because it was just girls vaulting. Not my favorite coach.

The runway was rasied six inches and had a roll out runway the last fifteen feet becuase the mondo was worn out. And, to top it off, the standards weren't bolted down.

Well, we competed. Then, after the meet, I had an hour and a half to figure out how to tell my head coach why we would never vault there again. And, to kick myself for letting my girls compete in the first place. The good news is my head coach beleives in my coaching and my judgement so we will not compete at that school again until there upgrade there pits. Sadly, the same school has the girls conference again next year which if their head coach decides to hold the vault at the same school, my girls will not compete which means that my senior girl who qualified for State last year as a junior will not be able to win a conference title.

Hey, coaches, make the tough decisions to stop unsafe vaulting. I still get sick to my stomach thinking about what I didn't do that day.

Sadly, the same school has the girls conference again next year which if their head coach decides to hold the vault at the same school, my girls will not compete which means that my senior girl who qualified for State last year as a junior will not be able to win a conference title.

vcpvcoach, I applaud your safety attitude and encourage you to lobby your conference and fellow coaches to find a different site for next year's vault. Just send them the link to all of the PV accidents and ask them if they are willing to risk an accident to one of their athletes. You may be able to get your local USATF Officials association to help you.

A quick question concerning the phrasing of the hard and unyielding surfaces portion of the NFHS rulebook..

I've been to a couple locations within the past few years that have have concrete at the end of the runway leading up to the plant box... about 3-4ft of it. However, going strictly by the rules of the book this is allowed. I brought this up with the head official and we took a look at the rulebook and it says (not quoting) 'hard and unyielding surfaces on the side AND back of the pits.' It says nowhere about concrete/hard surfaces in front of the pits.

At one of those locations I chose to not let my female vaulters jump b/c a) i felt it was an unsafe setup, b) some of them would have had to take off from the concrete, and c) a couple of them are pole pushers and with a 1/4" lip on the concrete it would make pole pushing impossible. However at the most recent one I still allowed my guys to jump... Tough call, but I'm just looking for some responses on the ruling. The book details surfaces on the sides and back, but nowhere on the front. The head official followed the rulebook in this situation.