Fight Medicine Research Institute

Emergency response

What happens in the minutes after a fighter goes down and does not get up: the plan, the people, the equipment and the route to a hospital.

A priority states what Fight Medicine Research Institute wants answered and why. It is not a study, a finding or a recommendation. Any study must first pass scientific review and independent ethics review under policy R-01.

Why it matters

When a fighter is badly hurt, the outcome depends on what was arranged before the first bell. A plan nobody has rehearsed is not a plan.

Fight Medicine Research Institute wants emergency protocols for combat sports to rest on evidence from real events: what was in place, what happened, and how long each step took.

Research questions

  • What emergency plans, equipment and personnel are in place at events of different sizes and under different rule sets?
  • How long does each step take, from the fighter going down to handover at a hospital, and where is time lost?
  • Do the people at ringside train and rehearse together before the event?
  • What do fighters and their corners know about the emergency plan before they compete?

In the research library

The library holds 6 records on this priority. Two are consensus statements. Two are surveillance studies: one recorded hospital transfers at bare-knuckle events, and one recorded the care given by the ring doctor at amateur Muay Thai championships. Two are case reports, one of them with a review of published cases.