News
CTE confirmed in college athlete’s death by suicide
Kosta Karageorge
We previously wrote a blog about Kosta Karageorge right after his tragic death in 2014. Karageorge was an Ohio State football player and former wrestler whose life ended with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. After sending a few texts to his girlfriend, then his mother, Karageorge, climbed into a dumpster in an alley near his apartment, and shot himself. He was twenty two years old.
This New York Times story confirms he had Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, as well as injuries to his prefrontal cortex. Karageorge had experienced multiple concussions throughout his short life, and, in one of his final text messages to his mother, he described his brain as being messed up by “all these concussions.”
With high school and college football practices ramping up, it’s worth mentioning, once again, how important concussion awareness and prevention efforts are for these young men. We cannot depend on the participants, who are focused on continuing to play the sport they love regardless of the consequences, to properly identify and report their injuries.
