A serious weightlifting accident involving a Southern California football student-athlete has spurred some schools to revisit weight-room policies and procedures to make sure proper safety measures are in place.

Trojans running back Stafon Johnson sustained extensive neck and throat injuries while lifting weights. He was bench pressing during a September 28 workout when the bar slipped from his hand, fell onto his throat and crushed his neck and larynx. Johnson was rushed to the hospital where he underwent seven hours of surgery to treat his injuries. He is expected to be released from the hospital Wednesday.

Though the senior’s collegiate football career may be over (the school has not decided whether to seek a hardship waiver), Johnson is expected to make a full recovery. 

Johnson, the Trojans’ second-leading rusher at the time, was being spotted when the accident occurred and reports indicate the room was staffed. But the incident served as a reminder for the extensive precautions that must be implemented with weight training.

Jay Hoffman, president of the National Strength Coaches Association and a professor and chair of the department of exercise science at College of New Jersey, said schools should have a certified strength and conditioning specialist in the training facility. Doing so, he said, best serves student-athletes by making sure that the individuals in charge of their training demonstrate an appropriate level of knowledge.

Both the NSCA and the Collegiate Strength and Conditioning Coaches Association, which specifically represents coaches who work at colleges and universities, offer certification programs and a number of additional strength and conditioning related resources online.

Boyd Epley, NSCA director of coaching performance, said the organization’s strength and conditioning standards and guidelines document was updated in July. The standards and guidelines help identify areas of risk, increasing safety and decreasing the likelihood of injury. 

Epley, a longtime strength and conditioning coach at Nebraska before joining the NSCA, also urged schools to treat weight rooms like they treat swimming pools by limiting access and ensuring adequate oversight when the facility is in use. The supervisor needs to see the activity, he said, to properly oversee and manage it.

“You wouldn’t dream of opening a swimming pool and leaving the door open and having it unsupervised,” he said. “The same should be true of the weight room. When there is activity in a weight room, there should be qualified supervision every time.”

Accidents do happen, though. Scott Bennett, head strength and conditioning coach at Southern Mississippi and a member of the CSCCA board of directors, said even with precautions in place, the potential for weight-room accidents always exists.

“What we do in a weight room is serious business,” Bennett said. “With some of the weights any collegiate football player is going to use, the potential for any type of minor accident grows exponentially with the types of strength levels these young people possess. Sure, there are precautions you can take, but even in a situation where you’ve got a spotter right there with the lifter, things are going to happen.”

Consequently, Bennett said, schools are strongly encouraged to have an action plan in place to respond to emergency situations, whether they occur in the weight room or on the field.

Ron Courson, director of sports medicine at Georgia, said written emergency response plans should include the names of key personnel, what equipment is available and where that equipment is located. Because college campuses can be confusing to navigate and buildings may not have normal street addresses and may have multiple entrances, the physical address should be posted by each phone so that the specific location can be communicated in case 911 is called.

Courson also stressed the importance of reviewing the response plan at least annually with anyone who comes in contact with student-athletes, including the sports medicine staff, strength and conditioning staff, and sport coaches.

“It’s just like practice,” he said. “The reason we compete well and play well is because we practice. It’s the same thing from an emergency standpoint. If you practice and rehearse it, you’re going to perform better under pressure when you need to use it.”

Given how workouts have been expanded over the years, Courson said schools may have trouble placing a sports medicine provider at every practice, workout and competition. Thus, he said, it’s a good idea to have all strength and conditioning staff as well as all coaches trained in CPR and first aid. Having more individuals certified in CPR and first aid also means there are more people available to assist in case of an emergency.

“Any time you have an emergency situation, it does involve more than one person,” said Courson. “The more people we have on our staffs trained to deal with that, the better equipped we are when it does happen.”