Reporter ISSAQUAH | SAMMAMISH
Friday, September 30, 2011
www.issaquahreporter.com
Shooter had 900 rounds of ammo Issaquah Police credited with saving lives, ‘perhaps a lot of lives’ BY CELESTE GRACEY CGRACEY@ISSAQUAHREPORTER.COM
Blake Miller, a senior at Issaquah High School, had high hopes for the 2011 football season and continuing his career in college. But after three concussions in the past calendar year, Miller was sidelined permanently and is now an assistant coach for the Eagles. CHAD COLEMAN, Bellevue Reporter
HEAD GAMES
Concussions to young athletes getting increased attention BY JOSH SUMAN JSUMAN@BELLEVUEREPORTER.COM
From afar, Blake Miller looks like any other up-and-coming high school football coach. He exudes energy, clearly possesses a knowledge of the game and has a seamless connection with the players he works with. Probably because just a few months ago, he was one of them. During a jamboree in June, Miller, now a senior at Issaquah High School, suffered the sixth concussion of his life and third in the past calendar year, prematurely ending his football career. “I don’t remember it,” Miller said of his most recent concussion. “But when I got hit, I knew I was done. It was rough.” Unfortunately, Miller is far from alone. A concussion is defined by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as “a type of traumatic brain injury caused by a bump, blow or jolt to the head that can change the way the brain normally works.” Symptoms
include headaches, nausea, trouble balancing, dizziness, sensitivity to light or sound and concentration or memory problems, among others. Around 90 percent of concussions do not result in any loss of consciousness. Dr. Stephen Hughes is a primary care physician specializing in traumatic brain injuries at Overlake hospital in Issaquah and has served as the team doctor for the Mount Si High School football team since 1990. “We want people to be very much aware that a concussion injury, in many cases, is something you can’t prove with a medical test (CT scan, MRI etc.),” Hughes said. “A concussion is a collection of symptoms.” Those symptoms are signs the brain is still attempting to recover from trauma and more importantly, they are a warning. “If you take another injury, the brain has lost its ability to regulate the environment and you end up with something more serious,” Hughes warns.
Few understand that better than the Lystedt family. Victor Lystedt is like any proud father. “Every time Zack was up at the plate, I would always get butterflies to see how far he was going to hit the ball,” Victor said. “When he was on the football field, I loved to watch him run and tackle. As a father, you want to see your son perform.” But all of that changed on a fateful October day in 2006, when the youngster from Maple Valley suffered two concussions over the course of one junior high football game. Lystedt collapsed after the game as a result of severe brain hemorrhaging and eventually had both sides of his cranium removed. He spent nearly three months slipping in and out of a coma. It was nine months before he was able to speak and over a year before he moved on his own. He was forced to eat from a feeding tube for 20 months. SEE CONCUSSIONS, 11
Several days after police shot down a gunman at Clark Elementary school, the sheriff ’s office is still trying to piece together what exactly happened that day. Ronald W. Ficker, 51, was shot five times by four Issaquah police officers, after he reportedly walked through south downtown Issaquah baring two rifles, and carrying 952 rounds of ammo. Police painted a picture of a disturbed and possibly mentally ill man, who hid behind a berm and fired 11 shots at five officers on the school playground. It was a “deadly mixture” of factors – fire arms, large groups of people and a suspect willing to shoot, said Steven Strachan, Chief Deputy at the King County Sheriff ’s Office, which is investigating the incident. “Five Issaquah officers were put into the middle of that,” he said in a press conference. “I believe in my heart that they saved lives, perhaps a lot of lives.” Police first interacted with Ficker Sept. 15, when he walked into the Issaquah Police Station openly carrying a sidearm at his hip. He told the officer that he had concerns for his safety, because he had an invention that would save the planet. SEE SHOOTER, 13
Photo shows all of the weapons found in, but only the ammo recovered from the car. CELESTE GRACEY, Issaquah Reporter