Deaths and catastrophic injuries, as the medical literature published them.

Why the counts differ

Several sources count deaths in lacrosse, and none of them is a complete total. They use different registries, cover different years and levels, and count different things: some count deaths only, some count deaths and cardiac arrests together, and one counts every catastrophic event, fatal or not. Their figures cannot be added together or compared directly.

Moseley and colleagues, 2024: four decades of catastrophic events

The study by Moseley, Lincoln, Drezner, DeLong, Shore, Walker, Register-Mihalik, Cantu and Kucera used surveillance by the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research (NCCSIR) for US lacrosse from 1 July 1982 to 30 June 2020. It counted catastrophic events, both fatal and non-fatal, and it counted men's and women's lacrosse separately.

The counts

• Events by level. 69 catastrophic events: 16 youth or amateur, 36 high school and 17 college.
• Fatal and non-fatal. 25 (36 percent) were fatal and 44 non-fatal. The fatal events were 7 youth or amateur, 12 high school and 6 college.
• By sex. Males accounted for 58 events, 24 of them fatal; females for 11 events, 1 of them fatal.
• By type. 49 events (71 percent) were traumatic and 20 (29 percent) exertional or medical. Of the fatal events, 13 were traumatic and 12 exertional or medical.
• By category. 15 commotio cordis events, 15 other sudden cardiac arrests, 14 spinal cord injuries, 9 head injuries, 11 other traumatic injuries and 5 cases of rhabdomyolysis, all female.
• By mechanism. Contact with the ball or stick was the mechanism in 28 events, given as 23 ball and 4 stick (the study's table lists the remaining one as unknown); player-to-player contact in 14.

The rates

• Overall, 0.54 catastrophic events per 100,000 athlete-seasons, and 0.20 fatal events per 100,000.
• The college rate (2.2 per 100,000) was about three times the high school rate (0.69).
• At high school level the male rate was 7.8 times the female rate; at college level male and female rates were similar (rate ratio 1.0).
• High school catastrophic events were 3.3 times as frequent per exposure in games as in practices.
• The fatality rate from sudden cardiac arrest and commotio cordis combined fell by about 95 percent between the periods 1982-83 to 2006-07 and 2007-08 to 2019-20.

What the authors said, and the study's limits

The authors said their findings may inform rule changes by USA Lacrosse, the NFHS and the NCAA, that ball and chest-protector standards should be monitored, and that preventing commotio cordis needs measures at every level. They listed limits: surveillance was passive and partly based on media reports, reporting is not required below college level, youth events may be under-reported, and small counts give wide confidence intervals.

Maron and colleagues, 2009: sudden death in competitive lacrosse

This study used a different registry, the US Sudden Death in Young Athletes Registry, for 1980 to 2008, and counted sudden deaths and cardiac arrests together in high school and college lacrosse. It found 23, all male, ten of them after a blow to the chest. It gave an overall sudden death rate of 1.46 per 100,000 person-years and a commotio cordis death rate of 0.63 per 100,000 person-years. A news report of the same study, seen only in a search summary, gave the number of deaths as 19 of the 23 cases. Details are on commotio cordis.

Other published figures

• USA Lacrosse, January 2017. A USA Lacrosse Magazine article said seven lacrosse players had died of commotio cordis since 1983. It named no source for the count. The 2009 study's ten commotio cordis deaths cover a different period and population, so the two figures differ and neither should be read as the total.
• NOCSAE. NOCSAE estimates 15 to 25 commotio cordis deaths a year across all sports, most of them under 18. It gives this as its own estimate, without a source, and it is not lacrosse-specific.
• World Lacrosse. World Lacrosse's FAQ on its 2026 equipment standards cites 1982 to 2023 data of one commotio cordis death among female athletes in all sports, none attributed to lacrosse, against 33 among males. It does not name the data source.
• Peng and colleagues, 2023. The review says reporting of sudden cardiac death in athletes is neither standardised nor mandatory, and that the national commotio cordis registry has published no public count since July 2012.

A newer report, named only

The NCCSIR's 42nd annual all-sport catastrophic injuries report, covering fall 1982 to spring 2024, is dated 17 September 2025 (Report 2025-03, by Kucera and Cantu), according to a search summary. It was not read for this site, it was reported to carry a notice restricting reuse, and none of its contents are used here.

How often lacrosse players are injured more generally is on injuries named, and the concussion rules each body sets are on concussion by body.