Artificial turf may pose an unseen hazard to athletes.

Some athletic fields could wind up with big problems on their hands after a 13 Action News investigation exposed the dangers of artificial turf. As it turns out, there was a lack of safety testing and maintenance at high school football fields across Las Vegas. Now some investigators are peering into how nearly all artificial football fields are made, and the dangers and risks associated with them.

“It’s everywhere. It’s all over me,” said high school soccer player Jay Beller, referring to little black rubber pellets, which can be found all over the turf.

“After every game and every practice, I’d have to wash it all out of my scabs and stuff. It burned pretty bad,” said Beller. The pellets Beller speaks of are called crumb rubber. It’s made from recycled tires that have been chopped up into little pieces.

“It’s disgusting,” said former US National Team Goalie Amy Griffin. “I really don’t think they’re testing it in a way of how we live in it,” said Griffin.

Griffin noticed something was off when she stumbled upon a troubling pattern when she visited a cancer patient who was also a goalie at the hospital.

“When the nurse walked by, she just overheard our conversations about being a crazy goalkeeper. She said, ‘Wait a second! You’re a goalkeeper, too? You’re like the fifth goalkeeper I’ve hooked up to chemo this week,'” said Griffin.

It was only a matter of time before Griffin heard about even more athletes who played on artificial fields and had been diagnosed with cancer. It’s been a decade since she started keeping a list.

“That list was at 15, then it went pretty quickly to 35, and now the list its at 264,” said Griffin.

Researchers are at odds about the use of used tires in playgrounds and sports fields. While the turf industry maintains that it’s safe, the federal government is now investigating.