BRAIN INJURIES STEAL LIVES IN SO MANY WAYS
Justin Strzelczyk, 6 feet 6 inches and 300 pounds, was a monstrous presence on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ offensive line from 1990-98. He was known for his friendly, banjo-playing spirit and gluttony for combat.
But, according to the New York Times, on a September morning in 2004, Justin Strzelczyk was apparently experiencing a breakdown, when, during a 40-mile high-speed police chase in central New York, his pickup truck collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded, killing him instantly. Was Strzelczyk’s bizarre behavior caused by chronic traumatic encephalopathy [CTE], a condition which can cause memory loss, depression and eventually Alzheimer’s disease-like dementia, even in a 36 year-old man?
After Strzelczyk’s death, Dr. Bennet Omalu, a neuropathologist at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, diagnosed Strzelczyk as having CTE. Unfortunately, tests for CTE cannot be performed on a living person other than through an intrusive tissue biopsy. Post mortem tests on Strzelczyk’s brain tissue confirmed Dr. Omalu’s diagnosis. “This is irreversible brain damage,” Omalu said. “It’s most likely caused by concussions sustained on the football field.”
But, the football field is not the only arena in which a concussion or other brain injury might result. In fact, brain injuries often occur when a person has a car accident. The force of one car hitting another will cause a person’s head to snap back and forth [hence the term whiplash] resulting in the brain being bounced around inside the skull. According to the Mayo Clinic, after an accident the brain may bleed, causing swelling of the soft tissue which has no place to go, because the hard skull will not expand to accommodate the swelling brain. Eventually the trapped brain cells will began to die, causing sometimes irreversible and life-altering traumatic brain injury. One half of all traumatic brain injuries are caused by car accidents.
The Mayo Clinic reports that complications of a brain injury can produce problems with thinking, reasoning, problem solving and destructive personality changes that include: inappropriate behavior, unstable emotions, and impaired social skills.
