On June 9, 2011, Alabama governor Robert Bentley signed the state's youth sports concussion safety bill into law (Ala. Code 1975 §22-11E-2. Alabama joined a growing group of states (twenty-five at last count) that have passed such a law since May 2009, when Washington State's groundbreaking Zackery Lystedt Law was enacted.
The Alabama law (as updated in 2012) requires:
- each sports or recreational organization to create a concussion and head injury information sheet that athletes and parents must sign each year;
- requires local school systems to develop concussion guidelines;
- each sports or recreational organization to give coaches annual training on how to recognize the symptoms of a concussion and the proper medical treatment;
- that a youth athlete who is suspected of having suffered a concussion during a practice or a game be immediately taken out of play, not allowed to return the same day, and not allowed to return until he or she gets written clearance from a doctor with concussion training and expertise.
Posted July 17, 2011. Updated March 30, 2015
