Rugby player's death: A tragedy within a tragedy

Otamatea's reserve grade rugby team remember Jordan Kemp after his death from an on-field head injury.

Young rugby player Jordan Kemp was given the OK to head back out on to a rugby field with a ticking time bomb in his brain.

It's a sad, tragic fact - no one knew.

But it's also a sad, tragic fact that the technology - a CT scan - exists to protect people like Jordan. But it is expensive, and is not a standard part of the routine checks on people with concussion.

In his finding released this week, Coroner Brandt Shortland notes it has been suggested that every person with concussion should have a CT scan.

''In principle that notion is very sensible. In reality it would be an enormous logistical challenge, expensive and could not be properly funded and resourced."

Jordan had three concussions. The first was in a bicycle accident. Seven or eight years later, there was concussion number two playing rugby. This led to Jordan being stood down from Northland rugby until he had medical clearance to resume.

When he was treated for the second concussion, emergency department staff were unaware that he had been concussed before.

This information was on "paper" records.

Mr Shortland suggests electronic records would allow medical staff to access all pertinent information.

Would Jordan have had a CT scan if medical staff knew he had been concussed before?

By the time he was out of hospital, and getting clearance from a GP, it seems that the prohibitive cost of a CT scan meant it was almost never going to be an option as part of his follow-up care.

And yet if CT scans for brain injuries were as routine as an x-ray for an leg injury, well, who knows.

Death is not the only incentive to find new ways and methods to prevent and treat concussions - brain injury is a cruel, debilitating affliction.

On-field attitudes have changed, it's no longer a "get back out there culture''.

But it's sad that off the field, technology can advance swiftly enough to produce new cellphones annually, to the point that almost everyone has one, but we can't get the cost of CT scans down, so everyone can have one of those too.