Washington State QB who committed suicide had CTE (and brain of 65 yr old)

[pink shizzle]

I've posted this before but back in 2020 a close friend of mine I played rugby with committed suicide at the age of 26. Autopsy showed CTE. He had several bad concussions during rugby and had said he had a few during his football days as well.

He had constant headaches, memory loss, and couldn't sleep more than 2-3 hours a night.

The morning of the suicide, he wrote a letter to his sister, went to the bank, and deposited all his money into his parents' account. All just so sad. CTE is a scary thing.

 

[JerseyCityHawki]

Tyler Hilinski was a promising college football quarterback at Washington State University who died by suicide earlier this year at the age of 21.

Now his parents, Mark and Kym, are speaking out about mental health and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

“It was a shock to … find out that he had it, and to realize that the sport that he loved may have contributed to that diagnosis,” the mother tells TODAY’s Hoda Kotb.

Watch his parents' interview here: https://www.today.com/video/parents...-a-shock-to-find-he-had-cte-1264158787647?v=b

That’s just sad news … just awful

 

[Franisdaman]

I've posted this before but back in 2020 a close friend of mine I played rugby with committed suicide at the age of 26. Autopsy showed CTE. He had several bad concussions during rugby and had said he had a few during his football days as well.

He had constant headaches, memory loss, and couldn't sleep more than 2-3 hours a night.

The morning of the suicide, he wrote a letter to his sister, went to the bank, and deposited all his money into his parents' account. All just so sad. CTE is a scary thing.

Sorry to hear that; that is horrible.

Covid and all of the shut downs made things even more depressing so I am sure that didn't help his situation, either.

Tyler Sash was 27; your friend was 26. Too damn young.

 

[ExcellentBread]

I've posted this before but back in 2020 a close friend of mine I played rugby with committed suicide at the age of 26. Autopsy showed CTE. He had several bad concussions during rugby and had said he had a few during his football days as well.

He had constant headaches, memory loss, and couldn't sleep more than 2-3 hours a night.

The morning of the suicide, he wrote a letter to his sister, went to the bank, and deposited all his money into his parents' account. All just so sad. CTE is a scary thing.

I’m surprised they examined his brain. Those symptoms must have been fairly intense to warrant the study. I work in neuroscience and have suspicion that I have some mild form of CTE or post-concussion sequelae, but who knows. CTE is so controversial in the medical field, for good reason. I assume your friend had a light stage CTE, but how do you explain people having advanced pathological changes but mild symptoms? I’m sure there is a correlation with the current staging system but it seems to need better staging and classification systems.

The suicide thing I don’t get - it really seems to be a product of our time because CTE has certainly been around for a looooong time, we just didn’t know about it. But suicide seems to be so much more common and CTE gets blamed a lot. I suspect our environment deserves more credit than it’s getting.

Very sorry to hear about your friend.

 

[pink shizzle]

I’m surprised they examined his brain. Those symptoms must have been fairly intense to warrant the study. I work in neuroscience and have suspicion that I have some mild form of CTE or post-concussion sequelae, but who knows. CTE is so controversial in the medical field, for good reason. I assume your friend had a light stage CTE, but how do you explain people having advanced pathological changes but mild symptoms? I’m sure there is a correlation with the current staging system but it seems to need better staging and classification systems.

The suicide thing I don’t get - it really seems to be a product of our time because CTE has certainly been around for a looooong time, we just didn’t know about it. But suicide seems to be so much more common and CTE gets blamed a lot. I suspect our environment deserves more credit than it’s getting.

Very sorry to hear about your friend.

I don't know exactly how it all works but his mom had told me he was going to a specialist and they essentially told him he more than likely had CTE. He had 4/5 on some scale (again, I don't know how that scale works).

He developed depression, which, I assume, is why the suicide came into play.

 

[amahawk]

Tyler Hilinski was a promising college football quarterback at Washington State University who died by suicide earlier this year at the age of 21.

Now his parents, Mark and Kym, are speaking out about mental health and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).

“It was a shock to … find out that he had it, and to realize that the sport that he loved may have contributed to that diagnosis,” the mother tells TODAY’s Hoda Kotb.

Watch his parents' interview here: https://www.today.com/video/parents...-a-shock-to-find-he-had-cte-1264158787647?v=b

Extremely tragic.

 

[intrepodor]

I’m still wondering if there are other factors that increase it for certain people. How are there so many that show no signs of it or it doesn’t impact their life the way it does a few others? What about all those football players or athletes from other contact sports live long and normal lives. What’s different for them? Many of them had the same head trauma or worse.

What about rugby players? My god, if they have a head injury they just wrap some tape around their head.