Traumatic Brain Injury Newsletter

Issue 1.01, August 2013

Traumatic Brain Injury Newsletter What’s Going On Inside Football Players’ Heads?

“Legal Lightning Strikes”

for Chauncey Freeman Monsters Among Us

Commercial Trucking

Industry PutsYou at Risk

VirginiaBrainInjury.com

Official Magazine of Law Offices of Richard J. Serpe, PC

What’s Going On Inside Football Players’ Heads?

It was his son Garrett’s 10th birthday party, and Mike Webster was nowhere to be found. When the celebration began, Webster lay motionless, incapacitated by a combination of various medications, on a bed in a Budget Inn 20 minutes down the road.

With his illustrious, 17-year NFL career as a Pittsburgh Steelers center now only a memory, Webster had little to show for his success. The former NFL great was resisting help from friends and family, and had been reduced to homelessness. He was living on potato chips and dry cereal, and shocking himself into unconsciousness with a black Taser gun in order to get any sort of sleep. A shadow of the legend they called “Iron Mike,” Webster was now an entirely different person. In September 2002, his slow and tragic decline came to a close when he died of heart failure in a Pittsburgh hospital.

Webster’s behavior, Omalu was surprised to find during the initial autopsy that Webster’s brain “looked normal.” Later, however, when he examined the brain in greater detail, Omalu noticed “smudges and tangles” of a protein called “tau.” The tangles appeared “similar to those that would be seen in Alzheimer’s disease,” but were not accompanied by other substances that are typically present in the brain of an Alzheimer’s patient. Upon further investigation, Omalu concluded that Webster had suffered from the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.

Later that year, pathologist Bennet Omalu performed an autopsy on Webster with the permission of Webster’s family. Having heard reports of

Mike Webster is one of a growing number of former football players diagnosed in the last decade with CTE, a disease once thought to be limited to boxers.

CTE is characterized by “progressive degeneration” of brain tissue, degeneration which can lead to “memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia”.

The lack of knowledge about this disease, coupled with scientists’ difficulty in developing treatments, makes CTE a frightening and silent killer.

Detection of CTE almost always occurs after the patient’s death because there is no existing diagnostic test capable of detecting the presence of disease in a living brain.

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“Legal Lightning Strikes” for Chauncey Freeman

When he was two years old, Chauncey Freeman was poisoned while living in an apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. After several routine check-ups at the Health Department, he and his mother were sent home with no instructions for follow-up.

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s time went by, Chauncey fell further behind his siblings and classmates.

He was pronounced learning disabled and given medication for ADHD. Nothing seemed to help, and as Chauncey got older and failed out of school, his family struggled to understand why a charming and upbeat kid could have such a hard time “getting it.”

Chauncey’s mother contacted our law firm seeking help in determining whether Chauncey’s childhood poisoning could have caused the problems he lived with every day. Despite the challenge of almost 20 years passing since the poisoning, our firm took on the case, and flew Chauncey around the country to experts to investigate the nature of his brain injury. Through sophisticated testing and assessment, supported by hundreds of hours pouring over medical journals, we were able to prove that the verbal processing portions of Chauncey’s brain had lost over 99% of their capacity.

Traumatic Brain Injury Newsletter Law Offices of Richard J. Serpe, PC

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ike Webster thought he walked away from football with four Super Bowl rings and a hallowed legacy, but what he really left with was a failing body and lifetime of suffering. Webster’s story highlights the risks that come along with playing football, the frightening limits of our knowledge about CTE, and the pressing importance of finding a way to diagnose the disease and prevent Webster’s fate from befalling players of this generation and generations to come.

The insurance company for the landlords refused to pay fair compensation despite the devastating injuries. Furthermore, there was substantial evidence of code violations existing at Chauncey’s apartment when the poisoning occurred. Our firm knew the case had to be tried. During a long and complex trial, our firm’s attorneys convinced a jury that the apartment complex was responsible for the injuries which Chauncey sustained. The jury saw through the apartment company’s defenses with the evidence we presented to them and awarded a generous $1,500,000.00 verdict in favor of Chauncey.

Living with the permanent effects of a brain injury continues to challenge Chauncey.

Our firm assisted him in setting up a trust and other financial protections to protect his compensation.

This verdict was featured in the Virginia Lawyers Weekly.

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Semi-Trucks weigh 20-30 times more than cars do

Monsters Among Us:

Commercial Trucking Industry Puts You at Risk The instant a brain injury occurs, one life ends and another begins. When a tractortrailer struck “Tom,” his brain injury ended the life he knew. At work, at home, and as a dedicated volunteer firefighter, Tom’s life was changed forever. In Tom’s new life, he struggled to think, work, and interrelate. These difficulties resulted from damage to his frontal lobe. The devastation of this loss of identity is a common story.

If you have been involved in a bike or automobile accident, and you suspect that a traumatic brain injury may have occurred, then you should do the following:

77 hours 33 hours

a week of legal driving of unsafe driving

1. Watch for Symptoms: www.tinyurl.com/mu2c2w4

In truck collision fatalities,

2. Get Quality Scans: www.NeurologicStudies.com

98%

chance driver of car will die.

Trucks travel

20-40% farther after initially braking

Cut Off a Truck, Cut Off Your Life Although large trucks and buses have larger brakes than cars and passenger trucks, they take a longer time to stop because of their extreme weight. A loaded semi truck can weigh 80,000 pounds, while an average car - for example a Nissan Altima - weighs 2,945 pounds. In comparison, a Ford cargo van weighs 5,271 pounds, and a Dodge Ram 1500 weighs 5,818 pounds.

3. Contact Us: 877-544-5323 or info@serpefirm.com

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n crashes involving a car and a large truck (10,000 pounds or more), the odds are stacked against the car from the get-go. First, there is the vast size differential: large trucks are, on average, 20-30 times heavier than cars, and often much taller.

The braking ability of these trucks also poses a problem to cars. After applying the brakes, trucks typically travel 20-40 percent farther than cars before reaching a stop.

In addition to the hazardous physical and mechanical characteristics of large trucks, there is also the issue of driver performance. Driver performance suffers when drivers work extended shifts or operate their vehicles without adequate rest.

Currently, drivers nationwide are allowed to drive a maximum of 11 hours at a time, and no more than 77 hours a week. However, according to the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety (IIHS), these regulations are often

violated, and, as a result, drivers are operating large, dangerous trucks while fatigued. Research suggests that drivers are twice as likely to crash after only 8 hours behind the wheel, three hours less than the legal limit.

The IIHS also states that in the event of a fatal crash involving a large truck and a car, there is a 98 percent chance that a fatality will be suffered by the driver of the car. In the battle of car vs. truck, car always loses.

Total Stopping Distances

Reaction Distance Car Braking Distance

44’ 44’

80’

124’ Total 125’

60’

Semi Braking Distance 169’ Total

165’

60’

225’ Total 275’

71’

245’

71’

0’

355’ Total

Braking distance can be greatly affected by road surfaces, weather conditions such as rain, ice, and snow or debris. Give yourself even more room when driving in front of big-rigs.

316’ Total 454’

100’

200’

300’

525’ Total

400’

500’

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580 East Main Street, Suite 310, Norfolk, VA 23510

www.VirginiaBrainInjury.com

Traumatic Brain Injury Newsletter

Issue 1.01, August 2013

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Over $120 milion in recoveries.

580 East Main Street Suite 310 Norfolk, VA 23510 info@serpefirm.com www.VirginiaBrainInjury.com Phone

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Traumatic Brain Injury Newsletter Law Offices of Richard J. Serpe, PC

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