With great sadness I followed the details of actress Natasha Richardson's death from traumatic brain injury Wednesday, March 18. The shock wave that followed this news is to be expected. How could someone hit her head without any obvious external sign of bruising or blood, walk, talk, be just fine and then be brain dead within hours?
It makes no sense and it never will when we're talking about the brain.
While working on my upcoming book on coping with brain injuries, I have talked to individuals with traumatic brain injuries, their families and experts about a diagnosis that affects 1.4 million people in the United States every year. Of those, 50,000 die, which now claims Natasha, a wife and mother of two boys, as a statistic. The Brain Injury Association of America estimates 235,000 are hospitalized and 1.1 million are treated and released from an emergency department.
I've met people with brain injuries who seem just fine and others who are unable to care for themselves ever again. The message is that we must do exactly what the media docs are preaching right now after Natasha's death: don't ignore head injuries.
Protect your brain!!!! You've only got one!!!!!!!! And I've only begun to preach that message even more!!!!!!!
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