 For a career that's lasted over 10 years, Boston University field hockey player Madeline Hackett has had a remarkably clean bill of health. I'd have minor bumps and bruises here and there, but nothing really significant ever. So, with no previous injuries on her record, Madeline assumed she'd get through college unharmed, hopeful she could avoid injuries like concussions. I mean, I saw it happening to girls that I'd been on the field with either during practice or during game time and I really had never thought that that sort of injury would happen and that severity of an injury would actually happen to me. There are over 300,000 sports related concussions diagnosed each year with a probability of sustaining such an injury up to 19 percent. Maybe it's a mixture of ignorance or even invincibility, but hundreds of college kids are returning to the field with concussions. Potentially, I'm aware that they may be suffering from such a dangerous injury. BU women's hockey player Caroline Campbell suffered a concussion after getting hit in the head with a puck. Unaware, she tried to play through the injury. The first time I tried it, I ended up passing out on probably our smallest player on the team and I'm not the smallest player on the team, so that was a big bit of a mess, but, you know, wanted to come back, didn't want to be that one girl that couldn't play, so. Caroline has suffered concussions previously, but was still unaware of the long-term consequences of playing through the pain. I had no idea any of the repercussions of concussions, so I'm just now dealing with all the concussions that I've had plus the pretty bad one I got my first year in college. Madeline suffered her concussion midway through last season. There were 10 minutes left in the game and a girl from the other team came up and undercut me. Basically, I flipped right over her, over her stick, landed on my head, and then my whole body flipped over. And immediately I blacked out for around four seconds and then I got back up and was kind of dizzy and I kept playing for the 10 minutes. Similar to many of her peers around the country, no one was initially aware of Madeline's injury, including her coaches or athletic trainers. My trainer actually just basically missed it. As did my coaches and they saw the video afterwards and they were shocked. Later that night, Madeline began experiencing some of her symptoms. I vomited, so that was pretty serious and that was right after and the next morning. And I went home emotionally. I was really unstable. Dr. Robert Stern, who works at BU Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy said that the emotional instability of concussion victims is perhaps the most unknown and potentially harmful of the symptoms. And then there's this weird thing, the combination of the direct effects of the brain problem on mood and impulse control and all of the other kind of reaction to all the crazy stuff that's going on in life because you're unable to function well. But it can lead to really bad depression and a sense of isolation and in too many times, suicide. Even minimal trauma on the skull can produce concussions. An action as harmless as heading a soccer ball could have serious long-term effects if not monitored. Dr. Stern believes that concussion awareness is perhaps the best route in helping these college athletes. Is it really important for people to take concussions seriously right now? Yeah. Forget about the long-term effects, just for the short-term effects for the student athlete. Forget about going on to the pros, just to be able to feel good and to do well.