Ryan Freel commits suicide

[Bob Sheed]

Repeated head trauma seemed to start at a very young age for Freel. If there is a source to all of his issues later in life, that has to be it.

[dubc47834]

I don't understand why society has to have an explaination for everything. Sometimes good people do stuff they normally wouldn't. No one will ever truely know why Ryan Freel killed himself, just that it is a truely sad experience for his whole family, friends, and fans.

[pahster]

Closure?

Look, I get that brain damage sucks, and that it does terrible things to people, but since when has that been an acceptable reason to kill yourself? He left behind a family...I'm sorry, but I will always consider suicide a selfish act.

Reminds me of this:

[Danny Serafini]

An interesting, sad read. Haven't seen this posted anywhere. Apologies if it has been.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/magazine/when-the-game-is-gone/

Anyone else get a weird chill at seeing Jacob Cruz posting in the comments?

[Dom Heffner]

The first, though not necessarily limited to the media. I don't doubt that he had CTE.

And those pointing to other possible causes are making no more of a baseless speculation than those pointing to the CTE, they're just outnumbered.

http://smokescreens.org/lungcancer.htm

[mattfeet]

Very well written (and troubling) article.

[bounty37h]

An interesting, sad read. Haven't seen this posted anywhere. Apologies if it has been.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/magazine/when-the-game-is-gone/

Wow, that was painful to read. Truly heartbreaking for all involved.

[bounty37h]

I'm trying to phrase this nicely, but Freel was battling demons with alcohol/anger issues/depression before he started running head first into things. I don't doubt CTE had an effect on him, but that wasn't the only battle he was fighting.

Def not the only battle, but it clearly shows some examples of head trauma as a child (concussions/knockouts at a young age), surely long before drugs/alcohol, etc.

[Wonderful Monds]

I'm trying to phrase this nicely, but Freel was battling demons with alcohol/anger issues/depression before he started running head first into things. I don't doubt CTE had an effect on him, but that wasn't the only battle he was fighting.

He'd been running into things for a while though hadn't he? He probably did have issues with those things prior, I imagine the concussions probably made them a lot worse.

[Redsfaithful]

I'm trying to phrase this nicely, but Freel was battling demons with alcohol/anger issues/depression before he started running head first into things. I don't doubt CTE had an effect on him, but that wasn't the only battle he was fighting.

His mom says he ran into a moving car head first at the age of 3.

[Bob Sheed]

His mom says he ran into a moving car head first at the age of 3.

And didn't the article say that his parents could count at least 10 concussions before he even got out of High School.

Lesson to be learned?

It's never too early to start your kids in contact sports. Especially ones where your bell gets rung on a regular basis.

[kpresidente]

http://smokescreens.org/lungcancer.htm

There's a big difference here in that most lung cancer cases (~90%) are cigarette related, so when you lung cancer, it's a fair assumption that smoking caused it.

Not the case with CTE and suicide. Most suicides aren't CTE related. There's a whole lot of other things you can point to.

Anyway, the guy in your link has a point, too. The chance of a smoker developing lung cancer is pretty low (~15% from my research...he says 8%...he's probably right). Until I looked into it some years ago, my impression was that half or more of smokers got lung cancer. I wonder what kind of sensationalism might lead me to that...

"That one puff on that cigarette could be the one that causes your heart attack" - Obama's Surgeon General

OMG!!! ONE CIGARETTE CAN KILL YOU!!!!

See also...We have to ban e-cigarettes because the have the word cigarette in their name and that scares me even though they're harmless!!!

Yeah...none of these health scares get overblown. Never.

[kpresidente]

Reminds me of this:

Well, nobody's ever overcome any of those things by changing their outlook or values or attitude. Not true with depression. People do overcome depression that way.

[Larry Schuler]

Well, nobody's ever overcome any of those things by changing their outlook or values or attitude. Not true with depression. People do overcome depression that way.

They overcome bad moods that way.

But the post was referring to brain damage.

[kpresidente]

They overcome bad moods that way. But the post was referring to brain damage.

Not just bad moods. Lengthy depressions.

Also, most people with CTE don't kill themselves.