NU training room mends injured athletes

By Anthony Lanza
Norwich Guidon Staff Writer

Dave Botelho, head athletic trainer, had gotten into physical therapy because of an operation that his father had gone through while he was in high school. He had a job as a student athletic trainer when he was in college and the interest just grew from there.

Dave Botelho is one of the many personnel in the physical therapy department who tend to the needs of injured varsity athletes at Norwich.

"We work down here every day," Botelho said. "Depending on the season, it could be seven days a week in the fall, which is our busiest time. This time of year, it's usually around six times a week, depending on what's going on with games and practices."

"I treat, care, and try to prevent athletic injuries here at Norwich," said Meghan Bress, assistant athletic trainer. "I work under the head trainer, Dave Botelho, and basically make sure that our athletes stay safe and are healthy and can play their sports the way they want to."

"If someone came in, we would evaluate them, ask them what happened, and take it from there." Bress said. "If they haven't been to a doctor before, we ask if they have ever done this to themselves before. We basically take a word history, first, before we ever look at them. Once we evaluate what happened, that's how we know how to treat them from that."

In order for someone to treat an injured person such as a sports player, you need to know human anatomy, according to Julie Sledz, 19, a sports medicine major from Stratford, CT.

"You need to know where the bones and muscles are; you need to know the evaluation process and how to ask the right questions, and try to help them through their pain," said Sledz.

So far this year, the physical therapy department has treated approximately 400 different injuries, according to Rachel Sutherlend, assistant trainer.

"Usually, the fall time is our busiest time. With football at Norwich, you're looking at 115 athletes, and then you have rugby on top of that, which is another 60, plus soccer and cross country," said Sutherland. "During preseason, they are more prone to injury, because they come off of the summer not doing much activity. Winter time can be busy, too, just because winter sports have a much longer season, and the players tend to get a lot of endurance-related injuries. Football and rugby are the sports that give us the most injuries, just because they are such high contact sports."

"Primarily, we are here for the student athletes. We have, including the club sports that we work with, 18 teams that we deal with." Botelho said. "We do see a limited number of non-athletes with referrals from the infirmary, but by in large it's student athletes that we treat."

"I personally work down here in the training room about five hours every day, including my practices for softball, which is another two hours," Sledz said. "Working down here will help me get clinical hours and experience that I normally wouldn't get in a classroom, because it's great to hear the stuff in lecture, but to actually apply it really helps.

"I think it helps to have people their age help out, as long as they are certified, because I think you are able to relate better to someone your own age, and it just helps us to get experience at the same time." Sledz said. "There are more student trainers than there are certified, so we can help them out when there [are] not enough certified people."

"I would have to say that without our student athletic trainers it would be a huge push. They help us out tremendously here in the training room during the busy hours." Sutherlend said. "Yeah, it would be nice to have more certified athletic trainers on staff, but the student athletic trainers help us out quite a bit."

"Last year, they did not have a trainer, and two players played with broken legs. This year, that would not happen, because we have someone there all the time," Bress said. "Every practice, every home game, and we try to have a student travel to every away game. Basically, without athletic trainers, injuries go unmanaged, and they don't get better as fast as they could, or other complications may come up."

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