New Orleans Saints coach Payton with quarterback Drew Brees; REUTERS/Robert Galbraith

About 18 months ago, we wrote with great excitement about the National Football League (NFL) and the new attention they were bringing to the crisis of concussion. The 2010 football season began with new concussion awareness posters in the locker rooms. As quoted in The New York Times, the Baltimore Ravens’ center, Matt Birk, said:

“To put it out there in writing in locker rooms, at least it’s publicly acknowledging that, ‘Hey, this is real.’ There’s risks in everything you do, and this one is real. You can’t sweep it under the rug anymore.

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be much change in the culture of the sport: Players were not removed from play after either giving or receiving hard head hits—the kind that are likely to cause concussion. The concussion prevention program was little more than words on a page, talk with no back-up action.

Now, a new scandal has rocked the NFL, and this one is difficult to understand, under any circumstance.

An investigation has revealed a “Pay for Pain” bounty program in the New Orleans Saints. Head coach Sean Payton and general manager Micky Loomis have taken full responsibility. According to a Reuters news article, under the bounty program, players were reported with payments of thousands of dollars for hard hits that knocked opponents out of games. Supposedly, players were paid $1,000 for a “knockout hit” and another $1,000 if a player were to be carried off the field.

The program was administered by former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who issued a statement acknowledging his involvement:

“It was a terrible mistake, and we knew it was wrong while we were doing it. Instead of getting caught up in it, I should have stopped it,” said Williams. “I take full responsibility for my role. I am truly sorry. I have learned a hard lesson and I guarantee that I will never participate in or allow this kind of activity to happen again.”

This seems like quite a cold-blooded apology for such a heinous and injurious program. Oops, sorry, won’t do it again. Perhaps he and everyone else who actively or passively condoned this program shouldn’t be allowed a chance to do it again…perhaps they should lose their jobs…perhaps they should pay restitution of some sort to the players who were seriously injured by this program.

As Charles P. Pierce wrote on the website Grantland.com:

“What we shave here now is the face of organized savagery, plain and simple…. These events were not incidental to the playing of the game. They were an essential part of it. The players who participated in the program did not do so accidentally. The coaches who designed the program did not do it without knowing full well what it entailed, including the possibility of retaliation if the story ever got out, and a subsequent football arms race that would end up with someone dead on the field.

How much violence and physical damage is too much before we start to realize that our national pastime needs to change the unwritten rules of the game? We have a crisis of concussion… players dying young due to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and dementia… players committing suicide as they experience catastrophic declines in their physical and mental health… and now aggression bounties. As Mr. Pierce wrote:

Gradually, football has seen its appeal slip at the most basic levels. Pediatricians are advising parents not to let young children play organized football too early in life. Local high schools are looking at skyrocketing insurance rates and wondering, in a time when school budgets are being squeezed to a pulp all over the country, whether this particular game is worth the candle. Major college programs have all the economic problems present in the high schools combined with all the workplace-safety issues with which the NFL is grappling. Football may be losing some of what once appeared to be its unbreakable purchase on the country’s soul.

I’ve always been one of those people who cringe and look away when aggressive football hits are replayed in slow motion, so maybe I’m out of touch with what football fans are willing to bear. But I’ll never again be able to enjoy the pure sport of football without wondering exactly what nefarious plays are being planned in the huddle or the locker room. And I’ll never be able to assume that any on-the-field injury was due to an accident, rather than a calculated hit.

And maybe it’s time for the New Orleans team to change its name. “The Saints” just doesn’t seem to fit anymore.

RESOURCES

To read the full Reuters article, click here:  Saints coach and GM take blame for bounties

To read the full article on Grantland.com, click here: The Saints, Head-hunting, and (Another) Disaster for the NFL

To read more about the scandal on ESPN, click here:  Saints coach, GM sorry for bounties

Thomas Henson Jr., managing partner of the catastrophic injury and complex litigation division of HensonFuerst Attorneys, spends much of his time focusing on cases involving traumatic brain injury, catastrophic personal injury, and spinal cord injury. He has personally represented hundreds of people—children and adults—with every type of brain injury, including concussion, coma, and brain bleeds. Henson is also a member of the Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group of the American Association for Justice.

BIANC Board Member

In recognition of his role as a passionate advocate for the causes of traumatic brain injury prevention and treatment, Henson was recently invited to serve on the Board of Directors of the Brain Injury Association of North Carolina (BIANC). In this new role, he will work with other BIANC board members to raise funds and raise awareness of the life-changing effects of brain injury.

Henson has been a sponsor and member of BIANC for several years and has led HensonFuerst’s cycling team in its annual participation in Ride for the Rock, a charity cycling event that benefits BIANC, named in honor of a cyclist who suffered brain injury during a cycling-related accident.

“I am pleased to find another opportunity to help victims of traumatic brain injuries and their families, and I am honored that I have been asked to serve in this capacity,” Henson said. “The consequences of brain injuries can be tragic and are often overwhelming for those affected. Traumatic brain injury victims need and deserve our help, and the BIANC members do everything they can to maximize the quality of life for these victims and their families.”

Speaker and Author

Henson has also recently completed work on a book chapter. The book—The Miracle Mind: Sonya’s Story—was designed to help people retrain their brains after stroke. Henson’s chapter is a perfect complement, focusing instead on brain injury due to trauma (instead of stroke), and discussing how lawyers are often a critical part of a successful treatment team.

The chapter was publicly introduced on February 24, 2012, at the BIANC conference called “Building Community from the Inside Out.” There, Henson spoke about how attorneys can benefit brain injury patients, including helping them seek compensation for their injuries, providing medical and rehabilitation resources, and planning for long-term financial needs.

“I am honored to have been part of such a special group of people who gathered to exchange information and resources about brain injury, its consequences, and successful techniques for managing some of those consequences,” Henson said.

Miracle Mind-TBI Chapter

Brain injury patients nationwide are lucky to have such a tireless and passionate advocate on their side.

Thomas Henson Jr. can be reached at HensonFuerst Attorneys at 1-800-4-LAWMED, or via their website at http://www.lawmed.com/.  If you have questions, HensonFuerst has answers.

Patrick & Sarah Jane Donohue

Patrick Donohue’s world is defined by two things: His daughter, Sarah Jane, and numbers.

When Sarah Jane was five days old, her baby nurse shook her violently, causing four broken ribs, two broken collarbones, and severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). That injury sparked the interest in numbers. According to an article in Utah’s Deseret News, some numbers that Mr. Donohue is obsessed with these days:

• 765,000:  The number of children and young adults sent to emergency rooms for brain injury in the United States each year.
• 80,000:  The number who go on to be hospitalized for TBI.
• 11,000:  The number who die of their TBI injuries.
• $10 million:  The amount spent on brain injury research. (He compares that to the $4 billion spent on AIDS/HIV research and $1 billion on autism research, which combined afflict fewer people each year than brain injury.)
• 10: The number of different treatment plans TBI patients are likely to get if they visit 10 different doctors.
• HR 2600:  The name/number of the bipartisan bill currently being considered in Congress also known as the Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury (PABI) Plan Act. This resolution would endorse a master treatment plan for brain injury, and create a network of 52 State Lead Centers of Excellence–one fore every state plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

Dr. Ricardo Komotar, a noted brain specialist at the University of Miami Hospital, many people with brain injury may not even know it, especially if the injury happens during sports.

“It’s important to understand that only 15 to 20 percent of all concussions involve loss of consciousness. The other 80 percent are largely unrecognized.”

That has long-term consequences, he says, including cumulative brain damage. “You can present with early Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia. We’re seeing it more and more, the hits in sports more violent.”

The dementia-related disorders are the biggest issues facing adults who suffer brain injury, even minor brain injuries like concussion…especially after multiple concussions. But for children, the biggest challenges of brain injury are getting appropriate assistance in the school system, and helping them make the transition to adulthood. Experts say that about 90 percent of children in juvenile detention have brain injuries, making it not just a personal health problem but a public health and social crisis.

Concussion may be a dirty word

Mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is better known by its more common name:  concussion. But TBI activists and many physicians would rather we call call it just plain brain injury. Why? Because, according to Mr. Donohue, there’s a tendency to disregard injuries classified as mild TBI. “Imagine someone saying you have mild cancer,” he says.

MTBI may not cause the kinds of dramatic and devastating disabilities seen in patients with more severe brain injury, these mild injuries still require medical attention and coordinated treatment plans. Especially children, the youngest victims. And we all deserve to know that scientific and medical research is progressing, and it would be nice if there were sufficient funding that we have hope that someday TBI might become a treatable disorder, as opposed to a permanent disability.

To read the full article in the Deseret News, click here:  TBI crisis as evidence mounts

from Press-Citizen.com

From the time he was 3 days old, the Golden Retriever named “Tuesday” has been trained to be an assistance dog. These days, he is fulfilling his doggie destiny by helping Captain Luis Carlos Montalvan, a 17-year combat veteran who served two tours in Iraq, earning the Combat Action Badge, two Bronze Stars, and the Purple Heart. When Capt. Montalvan came home for good in 2007, he was suffering from physical and psychological wounds, including traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal injuries, and post-traumatic stress disorder. That began the period of recovery and getting back to life that he calls “the war after the war.”

In an article in the Iowa newspaper the Press-Citizen, Capt. Montalvan admits to drinking to numb his pain, and he was having a difficult time adjusting to civilian life with disabilities. Then, in 2008, he was paired with Tuesday. According to Capt. Montalvan:

“(Tuesday) has dramatically been able to mitigate my disabilities and enable me to move forward,” he said. “He’s a brother, a guardian, a best friend. … In some ways, (he’s) a prosthetic because he helps me walk.

“There is a connection there, a mind/body/spirit connection, that is much deeper than master and dog,” he said. “I rely on him and he relies on me. … It’s a wonderful, mutually supportive relationship.”

Capt. Montalvan has written a book about his experiences in war, after coming home, and healing with Tuesday. It is called “Until Tuesday: A Wounded Warrior and the Golden Retriever Who Saved Him,” and was published by Hyperion. The book has gathered rave reviews from some big names, including Senator Al Franken, Lee Woodruff, and Paul Reickhoff, Founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

These are the kinds of inspirational stories that feed the soul.

To read the full article in the Press-Citizen, click here: Soldier to talk about healing power of man’s best friend

To an outside observer, traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are invisible…and medically, the injuries are not well understood. As a result, those who suffer often don’t receive adequate—or even minimal—treatment. But the truth is that TBI changes lives. Any head injury is a tragedy, but when TBI happens to children, adolescents, or young adults, the tragedy is magnified. An article on NJ.com says it best:

Imagine you are a parent whose child has sustained a brain injury through something as enjoyable as playing a sport or as horrific as abuse by a caretaker or as patriotic as serving our country as a member of the armed forces. Wouldn’t you want the best system of care possible to maximize the chances of recovery and quality of life for your child? There are many tragic stories about children and youth with brain injury; Congress has an opportunity to provide support and hope for them.

That’s the goal of H.R. 2600, a new bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. Also known as the National Pediatric Acquired Brain Injury Plan Act (PABI Plan Act), this bill would help create a standardized, evidence-based system of universally available care for young people (ages 25 and younger), including those serving in the armed forces. The PABI Plan Act would ensure care at all stages of brain injury, beginning with prevention, and including emergency and acute treatment in medical facilities, reintegration into schools and communities, and transition into an adult system of independent living.

H.R. 2600 was introduced to Congress on July 20, 2011 by Republican Leonard Lance of New Jersey, and it has been referred to committee. But the bill has seemingly stalled, despite the fact that the bill has more than 100 co-sponsors in a rare bipartisan effort. Co-sponsors from North Carolina include:

• Rep. Walter Jones [R, NC-3]
• Rep Larry Kissell [D, NC-8]
• Rep. Mike McIntyre [D, NC-7]
• Rep. Bradley Miller [D, NC-13]

Funding for H.R. 2600 would come from discretionary money held by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and would not add to the budget deficit.

This is an important bill that would help children and young adults recover as much as possible, and receive support as they age into adults.

“The ultimate goal of the PABI Plan Act is to maximize recovery, enhance quality of life and ensure that New Jersey — and American — youth have the best chance to live productive and meaningful lives,” said Barbara Geiger-Parker, president and CEO of the Brain Injury Association of New Jersey, a nonprofit organization whose mission it is to support and advocate for individuals affected by brain injury and raise public awareness through education and prevention.

We urge concerned individuals to contact their Representative and voice support for the PABI Plan Act. To find contact information for your Representative, click here:  GovTrack.us

To read the full article on NJ.com, click here:  More support needed

from 9News.com

Dylan Hearn probably has a great future ahead of him; he is wise beyond is meager years. The 7-year-old Colorado boy has a personal crusade to made sure that everyone takes concussion seriously.

And he knows what he is talking about:  He suffered two concussions in the past six months. The first was playing football, and the second happened when he ran into the dishwasher at his home (he was chasing his brother.) The injuries put him out of commission for about a month, including his favorite activities—no TV, no video games, no reading.

According to an article on 9News.com, Dylan says:

“It hurts,” said Dylan. “A lot of sick and dizzy. Sometimes, you have blackouts.”

Now, Dylan’s concussions are changing the way people around him view head injuries. For example, his baseball coach, Jeff Pigati, says that the determination of injury used to be totally in the hands of players. If they said they were feeling well enough to play, they played. But kids and athletes being what they are, they typically jumped back into the game sooner than they probably should have.  That’s what killed another boy, 15-year-old Jake Snakenberg:

Snakenberg died in September 2004 after sustaining a serious concussion in a football game. Doctors believe it was his second concussion in a week and he died of Second Impact Syndrome. Just before the game, he told everyone he was fine.

That’s why there is now a law in place called the Jake Snakenberg Act. It requires all coaches, like Pigati, to undergo concussion training to look for signs of possible brain injury.
Dylan and Alex Hearn [Dylan's mother] applaud the new measures.

[If you would like to see the online training program for coaches, click here:  CDC HeadsUp]

Now, coach Pigati watches kids for head injury and tell-tale symptoms, and he’s happy to do so. Like most coaches, Pigati takes the health of his players very seriously. He applauds the Colorado law requiring coaches to undergo concussion training.

And Dylan? He likes the law, too. Why?

“Because it’s safe,” said Dylan.

From the mouths of babes.

To read the full story on 9News.com, click here:  7-year-old applauds new concussion rules

What survives of a marriage when a spouse suffers brain injury?

According to an article in The New York Times, that’s the question being investigated by Dr. Jeffrey S. Kreutzer and other psychologists at Virginia Commonwealth University (V.C.U.) in Richmond. In addition, the psychologists are working to develop marriage counseling techniques for affected couples.

According to a 2007 article published in the journal NeuroRehabilitation, when a spouse suffers a brain injury, the risk of divorce is surprisingly low—approximately 17 percent. Well below the national average for uninjured couples. But the statistic may not be an accurate reflection of the health of the marriages—the couples aren’t necessarily happy. According to Dr. Kreutzer: “While people may technically be married, the quality of their relationship has been seriously diminished.” According to The New York Times:

Dr. Kreutzer and other psychologists at V.C.U. are among the few therapists in the country trying to develop marriage counseling techniques tailored to couples dealing with brain injuries. Traditional marriage counselors often hope to restore people and their relationships to their original luster. For Dr. Kreutzer and his team, recovery often means teaching uninjured spouses to forge a relationship with a profoundly changed person — and helping injured spouses to accept that they are changed people.

“Changed” doesn’t begin to describe what some spouses experience.

Depending on the severity of the brain injury, an individual may be considerably changed by the injury…so much so that he or she may seem like an entirely different person. Injured people often have difficulties with attention, concentration, memory, reading, writing, and speaking. They may appear confused, have trouble with physical coordination, and become impulsive—buying expensive items they can’t afford, take off on trips without notification, or other potentially damaging behaviors. And then there are the possible personality changes:  aggressiveness, irritability, mood swings, depression, lack of motivation, and poor judgment. While every person experiences a different constellation of symptoms, even a small number of these symptoms can make the spouse of a brain-injured individual wonder what happened to the person they married.

The article in The New York Times talks about the experiences of Terry Curtis—who suffered brain injury from a tumor and the surgery needed to remove it—and his wife Vicky:

Mrs. Curtis, 60, was once drawn to her husband’s “sparkle,” she said. After the injury, he “flat-lined” emotionally, and he suffers from depression, anxiety and a lack of motivation. Her husband sometimes makes erratic decisions, she added, like the time he decided to take a do-it-yourself approach to the plumbing at their home in Coralville, Iowa. “Not a good picture when I got home,” Mrs. Curtis said. “And you can yell at him like a little kid, but he didn’t know any better.”

Once a software programming analyst, Mr. Curtis, 57, has “a lot fewer interests” than he did before the injury, and he estimates he has lost 90 percent of his friends.

“It’s a new you,” he said, “and they just can’t cope with that.”

It’s worse for a spouse, who lives with the changed person. According to the psychologists, the factor that seems to keep marriages from falling apart is guilt. It’s hard to be the kind of person who gets a divorce from a brain-injured person. The goal in therapy is to help the couple see that the person will not ever be exactly the same…that they will have to deal with a “new normal” in their lives…but that it may be possible to rediscover a new facet to the old relationship.

That may be the real definition of hope.

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here:  When Injuries to the Brain Tear at Hearts

To learn more about traumatic brain injuries, visit our dedicated webpage here:  HensonFuerst TBI page

Over the course of a year, we write hundreds of blogs. In case you missed some, here is a round-up of the most important traumatic brain injury (TBI) stories of the year. (To read any of the blogs, click on the title and you’ll be taken directly to the story.)

U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords

The year did not start off well. On January 8, 2011, a man went on a shooting rampage in Tucson, Arizona. Six people were killed, 13 were injured, including U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head. The rapid response of the medical team saved the lives of a dozen people shot in the rampage, including Giffords’. Over the course of the year, her recovery has been better than anyone could have predicted, a tribute to the medical advances in brain injury treatment.

• Arizona Shooting Spree Aftermath
• Gabrielle Giffords’ Recovery Called Ideal

Long-Term Effect of Concussion

The biggest brain injury story by far is about the long-term effects of concussion, especially in athletes. This year, scientists linked multiple concussions to chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a kind of central nervous system damage that happens when people suffer repeated head injuries, typically soldiers or athletes in high impact sports, such as football or ice hockey. Early symptoms of CTE include memory problems, difficulty concentrating, and disorientation. As the disease progresses, people with CTE show behavioral problems—poor judgment, aggression, sexual compulsiveness, erratic behavior, and drug and alcohol abuse—as well as increasing nervous system symptoms, including tremors, staggering gait, deafness, and dementia. Unfortunately, the only way to definitely diagnose CTE is to examine the brain of the affected individual during an autopsy. From kids to football players to hockey teams, concussion has been the biggest TBI story of the year.

• Concussion Has Long-Term Effects for Teen Athletes
• Football Player Dave Duerson Donates Brain to Research
• NFL to Diagnose Player Concussions on the Sidelines
• Will NHL Take Action Against Concussion?
• Athletes’ Dementia: New Name for an Old Disease
• What You Need to Know About Youth Sports Concussion
• Football Players Sue League Over Concussion Risks
• Football Players Demand Better Health Monitoring
• Repeated Head Trauma Can Lead to CTE
• Kids Suffer Long-Term Effects from Head Trauma

Cheer Safety

What do you call an activity requires strength, stamina, flexibility, agility, planning, and coordination with team members?  What if the participants were required to train with weight-training and aerobic exercises?  And what if that activity was performed in gymnasiums, in stadiums, and on outdoor fields?  And what if teams competed regionally and nationally? Sounds like a sport, right? Well, not to sports authorities. Cheer (what used to be called “cheerleading”) injures participants like a sport, including some devastating head injuries. That’s why we wrote a 3-part series on cheer as a sport.

• Cheerleaders Are Athletes, Part One
• Cheerleaders Are Athletes, Part Two
• Cheerleaders Are Athletes, Part Three

How to Hire an Experienced Brain Injury Lawyer

TBI is a difficult, complex injury for doctors to treat…and for lawyers to pursue. If you are considering pursuing a legal case, it’s important to choose an attorney who knows the complicated ins and outs of brain injury. That’s why we’ve provided this guide:

• How to Hire an Experienced Brain Injury Lawyer

VIDEOS

In addition to blogs, we also create videos about important health, medical, and legal topics. To see all of our available videos, please visit our YouTube channel here:  HensonFuerst YouTube Channel

Here are links to some of our brain injury videos:

Symptoms of Concussion

Epidemic of Concussion in Youth Sports

Hiring an Experienced Brain Injury Lawyer

When children suffer a head injury, parents are always relieved once the tears stop. But a study published in the November 2011 issue of the journal Pediatrics reveals that children with moderate or severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) have substantial long-term reduction in quality of life.

The study examined 729 children treated for TBI. Researchers tested the children 3, 12, and 24 months after their injury for their health-related quality of life, their participation in social and community activities, and their communication skills and ability to care for themselves.

The findings were surprising:  Quality of life was lower at all follow-up times. Social activities were significantly affected even after 3 months, but were improved (although not back to pre-injury levels) after a year or two. Communication and self-care abilities were lower at 3 months, and did not improve by 24 months.

The lesson:  A bump on the head can have effects that last much longer than the tears. Prevention of head trauma is key. But if injury occurs, get prompt medical attention to ensure that a serious injury doesn’t become a devastating problem.

RESOURCES

To read an abstract of the Pediatrics article, click here:  Pediatrics

To learn more about TBI, visit our dedicated web page here:  HensonFuerst Brain Injury Page

Three months ago, we wrote a blog about how some folks were calling to ban fighting in major league hockey. The call for action came on the heels of three deaths:  35-year-old Wade Belak, who committed suicide; 27-year-old Rick Rypien, who was found dead in his home; and 28-year-old Derek Boogaard, who died from an accidental overdose of alcohol and painkillers. Boogaard’s brain was given to a laboratory at the Bedford V.A. Medical Center in Bedford, Massachusetts, so it could be examined for signs of damage. The goal:  To see whether years of hockey fights and head injury had done permanent damage. According to Dr. Robert Cantu, co-director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University’s School of Medicine:

“There’s no way to know how much was damage caused by fighting as opposed to hits to the head sustained in the normal course of playing the game. Personally, though, I suspect it’s caused more by fighting,” Cantu said. “In my practice, when I’ve studied ‘enforcer-type’ guys and we discuss fights, they say roughly one in four times they get concussed. But they never bring it to the trainer’s attention. They just go to the box and try to recover enough to make it back to the bench when the penalty’s over. It’s the code. They’re afraid if they admit it, they’ll be out of a job.”

The results are in. According to an article in The New York Times, Boogaard had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), a neurological disorder thought to be caused by repeated blows to the head. It can only be diagnosed after death, via autopsy and examination of the brain, but symptoms often reveal the disorder. Memory loss, mood swings, impulsiveness, addictions, and in the late stages, a person with CTE can develop symptoms that look very similar to dementia and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease).

Boogaard’s brain was the fourth hockey player brain examined, and all four were found to have CTE. According to The New York Times:

But this was different. The others were not in their 20s, not in the prime of their careers. The scientists….told the Boogaard family that they were shocked to see so much damage in someone so young. It appeared to be spreading through his brain….

“To see this amount? That’s a ‘wow’ moment,” [Dr. Ann] McKee said as she pointed to magnified images of Boogaard’s brain tissue. “This is all going bad.”

What’s particularly scary is that other current, young hockey players could have the disease…and how many will sustain blows to the head tomorrow that will start the disease process. And yet, the NHL isn’t convinced that here is a link between hockey and CTE.  Hmmm…guess that means that they won’t be changing the rules about fighting on the ice. In fact, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman told The New York Times:

“If you polled our fans, probably more would say they think it’s a part of the game and should be retained.”

There you go—the fans want the fights, so I guess we can tolerate a little brain damage. As Chris Nowinski, another co-director of the Boston University center, said:  ”They are trading money for brain cells.”

That says it all.

RESOURCES

To read our September blog about the call to ban fights in hockey, click here:  A Call to Ban Hockey Fights

To read the full article in The New York Times, click here:  Derek Boogaard–A Brain ‘Going Bad’