Former Philadelphia Eagles fullback Kevin Turner talks about his fight with the NFL and his awareness campaign on the long-term consequences of head injuries sustained while playing football.
America’s favorite sport is under the spotlight as former players reveal the heavy price they have paid for playing the gladiatorial all-American game.
Head concussions are being widely debated by the NFL, its players and fans. In a $765 million settlement, 4,200 former players challenged the league over the handling of brain trauma and its degenerative long-term effects. Is this lawsuit the tip of the iceberg? And with more and more players coming forward with traumatic brain injuries, will this settlement change the face of football?
Seen as a landmark case, it is hoped that this case will open the door to more lawsuits by many former players and even former high school players who have suffered neurological brain diseases through playing hard in a game they loved.
For Kevin Turner, it has been a long battle to get recognition for ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Diagnosed in May 2010, Turner still can walk, but the disease has started to ravage his upper body, leaving him with minimal use of his arms and hands. He has no control of the neck muscles needed to hold up his head. And the cause of this disease, he believes, is receiving too many blows to the head while playing NFL football.
In his interview with MPN, the few words Turner was able to speak on the issue of head concussion are often difficult to understand.
“I would like to have had the [concussion] information,” he said. “It might have kept me from . . . I might’ve played 6 years instead of 8. It might’ve prevented me from going back into a game or practice when I knew I was still dazed.”
Turner has been living with ALS for almost 3 years. With the average life expectancy of ALS victims at two to five years, his future seems grim if a cure can’t be found soon. Looking into these effects of head concussion is Courtney Magnolia, sports concussion expert at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
According to the CDC,
“A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury, or TBI, caused by a bump, blow, or jolt to the head that can change the way your brain normally works. Concussions can also occur from a blow to the body that causes the head to move rapidly back and forth. Even a ‘ding,’ ‘getting your bell rung,’ or what seems to be mild bump or blow to the head can be serious.”
“This case is a landmark case,” said Magnolia. “It starts to connect head concussion and blows to the head as being a serious brain injury, and thus steps must be taken to stop this type of injury.”
Some medical experts are calling for more reforms in the game controlling tackles while others are focusing on the immediate care given to head concussion.
“In Kevin’s playing days, being hit hard and landing on your head was all part of the game,” said Tamara Alan, executive director for the Kevin Turner Foundation. “Usually the coach would tell him to walk it off. Sometimes if he could count how many fingers someone was holding up – that was good enough.
“There was one game — the Eagles against Green Bay — where Kevin got hit in the first play. He still remained on the field and stumbled through the next couple of plays before the quarterback removed him from the field. He couldn’t remember whether he was in Philadelphia or Wisconsin. That’s how badly concussed he was, but he still went on to play out the rest of that game.”
Kevin’s victory has made it possible for former college football players to file a lawsuit against the NCAA. Ben Martin and Chris Walker, who played at Tennessee from 2007 to 2011, and Dan Ahern, a guard at North Carolina State from 1972 to 1976, have filed a class action lawsuit in federal court, accusing the NCAA of failing to tell them of the risks of concussions and not doing enough to prevent and treat brain injuries.
