A New Zealand teenager has died after playing a tackling game, believed to have been inspired by a controversial new high impact collision sport trending on social media.
Police confirmed the 19-year-old died in hospital on Monday night after he suffered a critical head injury while playing a tackle game with friends in the North Island city Palmerston North on Sunday.
“This young man’s death is an absolute tragedy and my thoughts are with his family and friends,” Inspector Ross Grantham said.
“The tackle game … was based on a social media-driven trend, where participants compete in full-contact collisions without protective gear,” he said.
Media reports inside New Zealand linked the game to the Run It Straight challenge. The challenge has been gaining traction on social media over recent weeks, with videos on TikTok and Instagram of mostly men running at full-speed into one another clocking up tens of millions of views.
“While this was an impromptu game among friends, not a planned event, this tragic outcome does highlight the inherent safety concerns with such an activity,” Grantham said.
The tragedy follows a championship Run It Straight event hosted in Auckland last week, which resulted in two men retiring due to head injuries. One of the men appeared to have a seizure, RNZ reported.
The event’s organisers, RUNIT promotes the sport on its website as “the world’s fiercest new collision sport” which rewards “strength and grit”.
More than 1000 people turned up to watch eight men compete for $20,000 prize money, with the winners heading to a final competition next month, to compete for $250,000.
In a statement to the Guardian, RUNIT said the teenager’s death was tragic.
“Any contact sport like boxing, martial arts or combat-style activities should only be held in highly controlled environments, which include professional medical supervision and support,” it said.
It said its events screen participants, have strict guidelines around how and where to tackle, conduct medical assessments before and after the competition and have medical staff on hand.
“We do not encourage any copying of the sport as it should only be done under the strict conditions”.
Melanie Bussey, a professor in the school of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences at University of Otago said Run It-style tackles can increase the likelihood of serious brain trauma.
Sports associations and governing bodies were working hard to improve the welfare of players and reduce preventable injuries, and the introduction of a high-risk sport seem “not only counterproductive but deeply concerning”, she said.
Patria Hume, a Human Performance professor at AUT warned the public about the risk of injury and death from playing the sport.
“[The] death was preventable,” she said. “We need people to stop participating in activities where the intention is to hurt someone.”
