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Last updated on Thursday, August 29, 2013
(EDINBURGH) - An Edinburgh High School football player is at Riley Hospital after what looked like a routine hit on the football field left him seriously hurt.
WTHR reports that the boys parents rushed him to the hospital after he collapsed at halftime. He eventually had to be flown by helicopter to Riley because his injuries were so severe.
"I've seen him get hit like that a hundred times. I wasn't concerned," said Harvey Bailey says he has seen his son Steven hit like this a hundred times and thought his son just had the wind knocked out of him.
Steven was hit just before halftime last Friday in a game against Manual.
What Steven's parents, coaches and trainers didn't know, though, was that he was bleeding internally from a torn kidney, spleen and injury to his lungs.
Doctors discovered that internal bleeding almost an hour later, after Steven's parents drove him to the Saint Francis Hospital Emergency Room. From there, Steven was taken by helicopter to Riley, trying to recover precious minutes he'd lost because no one realized his injuries were so severe.
Susan Bailey, Steven's mother, says there was no ambulance on the scene.
According to the Indiana High School Athletic Association, though, ambulances at games are not required,
according to Bobby Cox, the IHSAA commissioner.
According to Cox, equipment to protect a football player's ribs and organs isn't required either. Cox said that could change at some point.
Right now, the only equipment that's required of high school football players is a helmet, shoes, shoulder pads, mouthpiece, and pants that are padded at the knees, thighs and tailbone.
Supplemental equipment like rib cage protector must be covered by a football jersey and not have any hard edges.
Steven's parents say he's doing well and could be out of the hospital as soon as today, but he won't be back on the field until next season.
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