When players hit the field or court, the hits are unavoidable. In fact, the attitude often is, if you're not getting hit, you're not playing or practicing hard enough. But, if an athlete gets hit over and over in the wrong way it could be deadly.

Jeff Monroe is Michigan State University's Head Athletic Trainer as well as the Assistant Director of Athletics for Sports Medicine/Athletic Training Strength and Conditioning at the college. He says, "If the brain is still swollen, they get more inflammation to the brain, and they can die from that."

Ingham Regional Medical Center Director of Stroke and Neurology Dr. Jayne Martin also works with MSU athletes. She says when a concussion develops, the brain begins to swell due to an increase in the size of blood vessels within the brain.

She says, "The blood vessels lose their ability to auto-regulate, meaning, know how large or how small they should be, and they can actually start swelling. That allows swelling to start happening in the brain....the brain is enclosed in this box called the skull and there's no place for this swelling to go, so once the swelling occurs, that actually leads to death if it goes unchecked."

Both Monroe and Martin say the biggest danger lies in second impact syndrome. Martin says, "Two concussions that happen close together, while neither of them would be enough to actually carry significant neurological damage, when you put them that close together, they can actually result in death."

Even though a concussion is serious, athletes often want to return to play before they're healed. East Lansing High School Certified Athletic Trainer Melissa Phillips says, "I definitely have had kids and parents come after me, you know, why aren't they allowed to play?"

Phillips works with basketball players like guard Malika Glover. Glover knows the dangers of head injuries first hand. She says, "I was trying to set a pick and this girl just hit me in the head, like yeah, just head-on. Crazy." She suffered two concussions, the first during a summer scrimmage last year. Malika says, "I was only down only like a couple minutes, but then they got me up and I was just sitting on the bench and that's when people said I really started acting weird."

In the second, a ball hit her in the head during the regular season. She says the concussions were physically draining. Malika says, "Headaches, huge headaches and I was kind of dizzy."

After both, Malika took time away from the court. She also took a standard problem solving test that helps to determine when athletes can return to play. It's called the Impact test. It's given to athletes even before they begin play, it will help determine their cognitive skills after they've been hit. Phillips says, "It's their recognition time, their general memory and their ability to problem solve."

Phillips also says when there's pressure for athletes to return too soon, the test results help everyone to see that more healing is needed. She says, "It used to be just their word, they used to say, well, the headache's gone, well how do I know?

If you are a parent or guardian and you notice an athlete exhibiting symptoms even after someone says it's OK to return to play, the experts say, seek other opinions. Jeff Monroe says, "Parents probably know their kids better than anybody. They know their habits, they know their activities etc. So, definitely, if the family practice doctor isn't picking up that they're still housing issues, a request, a referral to a neurologist would be very helpful."

By being patient and letting the brain heal, you can avoid the dangers of a second impact.