Athletic injuries

[Gryffinmom]

We're just starting this process and, as my post under "Potential Problems" indicates, we've realized that we have one. Since it seems that most athletic injuries can be a problem, I can't help wondering how they can have so many applicants that re immediately medically qualified. Most of the high school athletes that I know play at a pretty intense level and most of them have had some sort of injury in their career- heck, my son's orthopedist's practice is full of them. They all dedicate themselves to rehabbing, generally heal fairly quickly, and get back to the game. Is that injury/rehab/healing history considered in the waiver process? And, if athletics is considered to be important, aren't these kind of injuries to be somewhat expected?

 

[RetNavyHM]

You are correct that a lot of the applicants to the service academies and ROTC programs have their fair share of injuries. Fractures, strains, sprains, separations, ACL/MCL/LCL ligament repairs, retained orthopedic hardware..... The list goes on. The majority of the injuries can be cleared by DoDMERB as long as the applicant has gone through treatment and the injury has healed. There are some items that DoDMERB is unable to clear, but as long as the chance of reoccurance is low, the waiver authorities can waive them. There are som injuries where the chance of reoccurance is high, or the applicant has not healed where DoDMERB has to disqualify and the waiver authority feels the risk to the service and the applicant is to great, and so they deny the waiver.

On the whole, the majority of applicants can be cleared at the DoDMERB level for most sports injuries.