The judge of the Tel Aviv Labor Court, Irit Harmel, recognized today (Tuesday) basketball player Matan Maor's claim against the National Insurance that an athlete's hernia is an injury at work, after he was injured in the warm-up before a game in the Winner League and it was determined that he suffers from an athlete's hernia.
Naor, the 32-year-old played for about 20 years, including in Hapoel Tel Aviv.
After the playing season about five years ago, he stopped playing for the team.
During his employment as a professional basketball player, Noor conducted team training sessions six days a week, with the length of each team training session lasting approximately two and a half to three hours.
As part of his training, Naor intensively and continuously exercised the abdominal muscles in repeated movements, the same in essence.
In the last 5 years, Naor had to do a more serious warm-up than other players.
This is due to various injuries that happened to him, the warm-up required more time from him.
A few weeks before the accident, the trainer changed and as a result, there was an increase in the load and intensity of training.
In one of the warm-up sessions before a game in the Winner League in basketball against Kiryat Gat, the warm-up was at a higher intensity than usual, since he had returned from a previous injury and wanted to make sure that he was fit for the game.
Towards the end of the warm-up, when he was in the air to dunk, Naor felt pain in his stomach and groin area and was later diagnosed with an athlete's hernia.
The National Insurance refused to recognize this as an accident and the court appointed a medical expert who determined that it was indeed an athlete's hernia as opposed to an inguinal hernia and the expert noted in his opinion that an athlete's hernia is damage to the joints between the muscles of the abdominal wall and the pelvic bones.
A normal hernia can be diagnosed by a doctor's examination, while an athlete's hernia is difficult to diagnose, and the claimant's profession and work must be considered, and the diagnosis can be helped by ultrasound and MRI.
And established, with a probability of over 50%, the existence of a causal relationship between Naor's working conditions as a basketball player and the disability he suffers from.
"He suffers from an athlete's hernia which is apparently caused by repeated trauma during sports activities," the opinion reads.
Even after the opinion, the National Insurance claimed that the medical expert's determination should not be accepted due to the fact that it is based on incorrect facts.
According to them, the plaintiff did not prove the existence of an accidental event and did not establish a factual basis according to the theory of micro-trauma.
As mentioned, in the end, the labor court determined that there is a causal connection between the medical defect that Naor suffers from, an athlete's hernia, and his working conditions as a professional basketball player and recognizes this defect as a work injury and ordered the National Insurance to pay Naor 6,000 shekels in expenses.
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