‘Car crash level’ impact: expert warns of Run It Straight dangers
It’s been around for years, inspired by the beloved game of rugby, but the viral Run It Straight game comes with incredible risk, experts say.
NSW
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A longstanding rugby-inspired challenge dubbed ‘Run It Straight’ has taken over social media and even been turned into an official championship, but experts are calling out the dangers of the game after it led to the death of a teenager last month.
As the name suggests, Run It Straight involves two players standing 10-20metres apart who charge full-speed at one another.
Despite the death of New Zealand teenager Ryan Satterthwaite after a backyard Run It Straight game last month, crowds of fans spent their Sunday night tackling each other after the Manly Sea Eagles vs Brisbane Broncos game at Brookvale Oval.
The footage posted to Instagram page creaturesofmanly showed participants running down the steep Brookvale hill as others waited to tackle them at the base, receiving encouraging cheers from onlookers.
One man downed his drink before running down the hill, another was hit hard and fell to the floor, while a third man moved with such speed that he bowled into the crowd at the bottom, taking out the people trying to tackle him.
While the act is inspired by contact sports like rugby, neurophysiologist Dr Alan Pearce said it puts immense stress on individual’s brains as it takes the “most violent aspects of rugby and is exploiting it”.
“There’s no evasion component which essentially puts almost a car crash level of impact to (participant’s) heads and therefore their brains are really starting to experience direct contact.”
“Even if it’s not head on head, the force transmitted goes straight through to the brain,” Dr Pearce said.
Dr Pearce expressed concerns that the “glorification of the impact” in the Run It Straight challenge will lead to kids and teenagers trying to emulate the behaviour in the field.
“There’s absolutely no medical attention if something happens … and that’s my worry, that kids around Australia are going to try do it this way and end up with a catastrophic injury,” he said.
Originally published as ‘Car crash level’ impact: expert warns of Run It Straight dangers
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