Injury - Rest of the players

[wyo96]

Spirited discussion between me and another official as we watched a game.

A1 is hurt, A1's coach is beckoned and officials send players towards their respective benches and remind them to "stay on the floor".
While near the bench, players get drinks of water, towel off, etc.

Are the players allowed to get a drink? It is not a time out, but a stoppage of play. An injury stoppage could be for 30 secs or several minutes.

In practice, I would allow it, but I am not sure there is rule or case book support to allow (or dis-allow)

Are you aware of rule or case support either way?

[JugglingReferee]

Athletes need water to stay hydrated. Being unhydrated could lead to an undesirable situation.

Let them have water.

[jdw3018]

I don't know if there's rules support one way or the other, but if I'm sending them to their benches during any sort of stoppage of play, I'm letting them treat it as a timeout.

And almost never am a penalizing a player for grabbing a drink.

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by jdw3018

I don't know if there's rules support one way or the other, but if I'm sending them to their benches during any sort of stoppage of play, I'm letting them treat it as a timeout.

And almost never am a penalizing a player for grabbing a drink.

Let them sit. Let them drink. Let them be merry.

If there is a player down and not actually getting up, I'll direct the players to the bench and they can do whatever they wish once there...sit, stand, roll on the floor. There are no rules that directly address what the players can or can not do when the game is stopped due to an injury.

We also have no idea how long it will be until the player gets up or is carried off the floor. If the time span is unusually long, I'm even going to offer each team a chance to "warm up" again for a few minutes.

[BktBallRef]

Originally Posted by wyo96

Spirited discussion between me and another official as we watched a game.

A1 is hurt, A1's coach is beckoned and officials send players towards their respective benches and remind them to "stay on the floor".
While near the bench, players get drinks of water, towel off, etc.

Are the players allowed to get a drink? It is not a time out, but a stoppage of play. An injury stoppage could be for 30 secs or several minutes.

In practice, I would allow it, but I am not sure there is rule or case book support to allow (or dis-allow)

Are you aware of rule or case support either way?

They can go over and get a cup of water during a live ball, as long as they stay on the floor. There's nothing that prevents it.

[tref]

Originally Posted by Camron Rust

We also have no idea how long it will be until the player gets up or is carried off the floor. If the time span is unusually long, I'm even going to offer each team a chance to "warm up" again for a few minutes.

Really?

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by tref

Really?

Sure, why not? If the EMT's take 20 minutes to put the kid on a backboard, you wouldn't let the teams warm up again? How about 40 minutes?

[jdw3018]

Originally Posted by tref

Really?

Not to speak for Camron, but I certainly agree with him. If it's an exceptionally long delay (for example, requiring paramedics and a player being stretchered out), it may be appropriate to allow players a minute or two to stretch, shoot a few shots, etc.

For me, this could be anywhere from 2-5 minutes based on the length of the delay and what the coaches would like.

[grunewar]

When a player is down i send the players to their bench and keep them on the floor. I've never prevented anyone from having water before.

I've never had the "long delay" before (thankfully), but can see allowing them to go to their benches and sit if it's an extended stoppage.

[tref]

The only time I've been in a similar situation (girl goes down & EMTs take 30+ minutes to arrive) both coaches agreed to suspend the game as the players were upset & unable to continue that night.

Had they continued, I guess it would've been a good idea to allow them to warmup.

[jTheUmp]

Never had the "long delay" problem in a basketball game, but I've had it happen to me three times during football games (once as a player, twice as an official).

In 2 cases, a short (3-5 minute) warm-up period was given after the injury delay. In third case, the coaches agreed to terminate the game early. In that situation, there were only about 30 seconds left in the game, and the team that had the lead was in possession of the ball, and the losing team had no timeouts remaining, so we were a kneel-down away from the end of the game anyway.

[grunewar]

Originally Posted by tref

The only time I've been in a similar situation (girl goes down & EMTs take 30+ minutes to arrive) both coaches agreed to suspend the game as the players were upset & unable to continue that night.

Unfortunately, we've had two such local incidents lately:

Earlier this yr, a coach had a heart attack and went down during a TO in the huddle with his team, and just the other day a girl went down on her head and was out for quite a while - both games were stopped and the last one was actually forfeited as the team was losing by about 20.

[BillyMac]

Longest delay for me was when a girl dislocated her elbow. Small town. It took the ambulance about twenty minutes to get there, and the girl screamed the entire time. It took them another twenty minutes to strap her down, and she screamed the entire time.

Players were allowed to do whatever wanted for about forty minutes. My partner actually got a hot dog from the concession stand and ate it on the visitor's bench.

After the injured player was carted away, we let them shoot layups for about five minutes.

[Loudwhistle]

Originally Posted by BillyMac

Longest delay for me was when a girl dislocated her elbow. Small town. It took the ambulance about twenty minutes to get there, and the girl screamed the entire time. It took them another twenty minutes to strap her down, and she screamed the entire time.

Players were allowed to do whatever wanted for about forty minutes. My partner actually got a hot dog from the concession stand and ate it on the visitor's bench.

After the injured player was carted away, we let them shoot layups for about five minutes.

Man that is one gutsy partner! I don't feel like eating during the game and especially if somebody is hurt. Dislocated knees or shoulders gross me out!

[Camron Rust]

Originally Posted by tref

Really?

Yep. Really.