New York Injury Talk Blog

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.”

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HBO ran an episode of “Real Sports” recently about the tragic frequency of traumatic brain injuries among NFL athletes. This comes on the heels of a study on brain injuries among amateur boxers, and an announcement from State Sen. Kemp Hannon of Long Island that Albany is authorizing additional funds for the prevention and study of concussions acquired in youth sports.

We applaud Sen. Hannon and the others for raising awareness of athletic brain injuries, which are a significant but silent minority of the 1.4 million traumatic brain injuries Americans acquire every year. According to the Brain Injury Resource Center, about 300,000 of those annual brain injuries are sports-related. Fortunately, most of those are concussions, the mildest type of brain injury. But even mild head injuries shouldn’t be dismissed, because neurological experts say sending an injured player back into the game too soon can expose him or her to serious risk of reinjuring the area, which can happen with even a minor blow, and leaving the field with much more serious brain damage. The problem is compounded by the secret irony of brain injury: even the victims don’t always notice anything wrong at first. For student athletes who are already under pressure to perform and often ordered not to "whine," this can add up to tragedy when they’re sent back onto the field too soon.

Thanks to our work with traumatic brain injury clients, we know head injuries cause a host of very serious symptoms, including mental impairment, problems with speech and memory, problems with movement, seizures, even personality changes. This is very expensive to treat -- and to live with -- which is why we’re proud of having won millions for clients with serious head injuries caused by someone else's negligence. But it's nice to see that our cultural leaders are taking the issue of sports-related brain trauma seriously.

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Posted In: Brain Injuries

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