As awareness increases into the potentially fatal effects of concussions, schools and health care providers have to recognize the warning signs.
By Rick Shapiro, Virginia Tramatic Brain Injury Lawyer
The death of a 17-year-old college-bound student from Virginia (VA) two days after he suffered a concussion has renewed concerns about the links between traumatic brain injuries and suicide.
Austin Trenum of Nokesville, VA, had planned to enroll in James Madison University. Those plans became irrelevant, though, when he sustained a concussion in his final high school football game and, two days later, hanged himself. The Associated Press reported that Trenum’s parents are convinced a concussion that wasn’t taken seriously enough led to their son’s death and are donating his brain for research.
The death raises new questions about concussion awareness in sport, an issue our experienced Virginia TBI lawyers have written about in-depth. It is also the latest in a spate of suicides that have followed concussions in sport. Last year an autopsy on 21-year-old Owen Thomas, a captain of the University of Pennsylvania football team who committed suicide, revealed brain damage.
“We know that a concussion can be followed with depression,” Dr. Robert Cantu, clinical professor of neurosurgery and co-director of Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy told the AP. “And depression can be serious enough that hospitalization is required in a small number of cases.”
BU researchers found that the college football player, Thomas, had chronic traumatic encephalopathy. CTE is also called dementia pugilistica because it’s associated with career boxers who have suffered repeated blows to the head. Earlier this year we reported on how CTE was diagnosed in NFL football star Dave Duerson, who also took his life.
As awareness increases into the potentially fatal effects of concussions, schools and health care providers have to recognize the warning signs. In the case of Austin Trenum, staff at a hospital told his parents to “make sure their son had 24 hours of restful activity,” AP reported.
His parents later learned he should have had no stimulation at all. Failure to take these concussion related injuries seriously could leave hospitals and schools open to lawsuits. Earlier this year I reported on a $2.5 million lawsuit brought by a camper at a Virginia Tech basketball camp in Blacksburg, VA, who claimed inadequate facilities and supervision contributed to a severe head injury.
High schools and youth sports leagues in North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), and Virginia recently brought in new rules intended to prevent head-to-head contact, returning too early from concussions, and limiting injuries from balls, bats and other equipment.
Other agencies, such as police departments, need to be aware of the dangers of head injuries. Recently we reported on how a lawsuit seeking $35 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages has been filed by the wife of a former Norfolk, VA, police recruit who died in training. The lawsuit alleges his death was the result of “repeated, violent blows to the head” by instructors that produced bleeding in the brain.
Our Virginia head and brain injury lawyers have handled many TBI cases including a 2001 case in which we secured $365,000 for a CSX locomotive engineer who suffered mild traumatic brain injury after he was hit on the head by a valve in an explosion.
Our firm obtained the largest personal injury verdict in Virginia history as of 2000 – $46 million – in the case of a gas station attendant who suffered a brain injury and other injuries when he was pinned inside a partly demolished gas station when a Norfolk Southern train derailed due to an incorrect switch position.
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About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is a law firm whose attorneys focus on injury and accident law and have experience handling traumatic brain injury and general head injury cases. Check out our case results to see for yourself. Our primary office is in Virginia Beach, Virginia (VA). Our attorneys achieved the largest verdict in Virginia’s history for a brain-damaged client in 2000. The initial award of $46 million rose to $60 million with interest when an appeal was settled confidentially. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. Our injury lawyers also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard blogs as pro bono public information services. While not every brain injury case meets our criteria, if you or a loved one is thinking about taking legal action against a possibly at-fault person or company that caused your injury, call our office at (800) 752-0042 for a free consultation. If you cannot get through due to high call volume, be sure to leave a voicemail. We will return your call.
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