A Tragic Kickboxing Fatality Leads To Thoughts About Safety

Date March 23, 2017 Author By admin Category kickboxing

A fourteen year old has died after competing in a kickboxing competition. Scott Marsden collapsed in the middle of a national title bout in England last week and then died shortly after. The cause of death is still unknown at this point in time. He was hit in the head on several occasions, however, that has been ruled out as a possible cause of death. All proper safety protocol was followed before, during and after the incident occurred and the event was within it’s rights to have fourteen year old competitors striking each other in the head because the match was not being sanctioned by the British Kickboxing Council.
 
All of this raises the question: What could have been done to prevent this and what must be done in the future to prevent this from happening again? First, whether sanctioned or not, headgear must be required for all persons training under the age of seventeen for all matches. Next, All official matches like this should have an ambulance and team of EMTs standing by AT the event – the response time for the ambulance took twenty one minutes which is crucially important time when dealing with a traumatic injury like Scott’s. Finally, there should always be heightened sensitivity to more extreme violence by the refs meaning refs should be quick to pull the trigger on stopping a match if they deem that any younger competitor is not looking good for any reason.
 
Scott is survived by his parents. There has been a crowd funding campaign set up in order to help aid his family during this incredibly difficult time – you can donate here.