Gholston Playing yesterday
Sorry if this was already covered in the game thread yesterday, but I didn't see much discussion on this and I was wondering how it has gotten such little coverage.
I'm wondering how the hell Gholston was cleared to return to the game yesterday after having the "wind knocked out of him?"
The replay sure looked like to me like (? Isiah Lewish I think) had helmet to helmet contact with Gholston, snapping Gholston's head back. Then Gholston laid ABSOLUTELY MOTIONLESS for a good 30 seconds. Then he gets up, and has this glazed look in his eyes on the sidelines like "WTF just happened to me?"
Then it gets brushed off as him having the wind knocked out, and nobody makes a peep again.
Now I'm no doctor, but I wasn't aware that being smashed in the head and having your neck snap back (with no contact to your chest) knocks the wind out of you. I also wasn't aware that not being able to catch your breath leaves you motionless/face down for a good 30 seconds. I've had the wind knocked out of me--I remember rolling around the ground panicking that I was going to die. Laying still was the LAST thing you do in that situation.
That dude was hit in the head and rendered unconscious. There are no "tests" to clear a concussion; once you are (pretty obviously) knocked unconscious, you have a consussion--end of story. Whatever crackpot MSU "doctor" cleared him to play shouild lose his medical license.
September 30th, 2012 at 8:52 PM ^
This video shows that the "unconscious" talk is absolute rubbish. (And Brent Musberger is a complete idiot.)
Gholston actually moves his right arm and leg very early on. It looks like he was told not to move and he didn't. His right leg and arm are supporting him almost the whole time - this is not something unconscious people do.
Time for everyone to move on and take the medical personnel's word for it.
October 1st, 2012 at 2:20 PM ^
The movement you decribe comes about at about 33 seconds, the hit was at 7 seconds so he was montionless for roughly 25-26 seconds. Seems like it would be reasonable to ask the personell on the field if he was responsive during the period in question.
October 1st, 2012 at 3:53 PM ^
October 2nd, 2012 at 4:50 PM ^
I don't necessarily see him supporting himself with an arm as much as layng on top of Miller with his arm on the ground. Considering you have been arguing with everyone that the video evidence is inconclusive, your immediate acceptance of this equally-ambiguous "evidence" supporting your side doesn't ring true. He may have been out, he may have been winded, but if I had to bet money on it, I would say he was at least dinged pretty badly. You don't just sit there relatively motionless for half a minute because you have the wind knocked out of you.
Andfor everyone arguing that, well, his foot moved, people who are unconscious for short times can still have latent physical responses and still technically be concussed. Like everything in life, concussions are not an on/off switch; there are degrees.
September 30th, 2012 at 3:05 PM ^
1. Took a massive hit to head
2. Laid completely motionless and limp for close to a minute
3. Stumbled to get to his feet
4. Repeatedly shook his head and looked like he was attempting to get the cobwebs out as he waked off the field.
The simplest explanation here is that he was knocked out cold, regained consciousness and then demanded he was fine, and taken at his word. He could be seen alone on the sideline just a couple of minutes later with no trainers around him. The 'wind knocked out of him' story is plainly BS.
September 30th, 2012 at 7:15 PM ^
The way he fell - completely limp with his arms out and without even trying to brace himself as he went down - is a pretty good indication he was either unconscious or stunned (concussed).
September 30th, 2012 at 7:53 PM ^
For shits and giggles, I took a look at 11W to see what the consensus was on the Ohio side of the ledger. It seems most people in the MGo and 11W communities agree that the "knocked the wind out" argument was complete B.S. for the reasons you stated.
Except for those few commentors who would prefer to play the contrarian rather than believe their own two eyes....
September 30th, 2012 at 3:08 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 6:42 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 8:17 PM ^
October 1st, 2012 at 3:52 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 3:34 PM ^
Is your father one of the doctors for the MSU football team?
September 30th, 2012 at 5:31 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 6:45 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 7:21 PM ^
Please describe to us the exact tests that are used to make sure that players cannot trick the doctors. Seriously, I'm curious to know what air-tight tests have been invented to this.
September 30th, 2012 at 7:38 PM ^
and please, don't be one of those people who disregards scientific research just because you don't agree with it. A plethora of other papers exist that suggest that the tests administered to athletes aren't just based on fairy tales and legends:
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/adis/smd/2008/00000038/00000001/art00005
September 30th, 2012 at 8:03 PM ^
I don't disagree with anything in those articles (and I actually make a living in scientific research, so even if I did disagree I wouldn't dismiss it), but I'm not sure how these articles prove the sideline tests are air-tight and that players can't beat them to get back on the field. Self-reporting symptoms is a huge part of the multifaceted approach to determination of a concussion. Further, unless I'm reading something wrong (disclaimer: I only read the abstracts and skimmed the articles), the confidence in determination improves significantly with tests that happen hours and days later.
Listen, I've said I don't think the doctors/trainers should be immediately fired (like the OP suggests), but I don't get why you're so adamant about not looking further into the issue or even thinking its in the realm of possibility that he shouldn't have been back in the game.
I've conceded the fact that its possible that he was just laying on the field motionless for some other reason than being unconscious, albeit unlikely from the footage we all saw. Also, the medical reasoning that he "had the wind knocked out of him" doesn't fly in my book for that scene. If anything, maybe it was a temporary neck stinger that scared him into thinking he was more seriously hurt than he was and thus lay still. Its really weird that you're so militant in refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he was concussed and someone made a mistake, that the full battery of tests wasn't properly administered, or that pressure to win the game weighed on the decision to get him back in the game. Any of these things are possible. All I'm saying is that this whole situation didn't smell right and warrants a closer look.
October 1st, 2012 at 3:56 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 11:22 PM ^
October 1st, 2012 at 3:58 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 8:15 PM ^
There is no test that I know of, that would trump the medical history of having been knocked unconscious by a blow to the head.
I do not care what sideline medical test anybody imagines. Examination of the eyes; getting the player to identify time, place and person; having him follow a pointed finger; other standard neurological tests.
None of it trumps the history of having been knocked out cold, and the apparent loss of consciousness for nearly a minute.
The standard protocol is that a player with a confirmed or suspected consussion should not be returned to play the same day. Period. Full stop. Having clearly and obviously lost consciousness after a clear hit to the head, Gholston had, at a minimum a suspected concussion, and almost certainly a real concussion. There is no explainable reason by which any sideline "testing" would have trumped the history of having lost consciousness.
http://cogstate.com/go/sport/concussion-management/sideline-assessment
September 30th, 2012 at 2:12 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 2:26 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 7:44 PM ^
No, I think we'll pass.
Edit: This was in response to someone else.
September 30th, 2012 at 2:57 PM ^
A CT scan does not diagnose concussion. Neither does an MRI. It's a clinical evaluation.
If he was unconscious, and it was witnessed by medical staff, he would have been done for the day.
He must have passed his evaluation, from the moment they first got to him, and thereafter, or he would have been done for the day. Even though it sure looked like he got his bell rung, I assure you, the people doing his evaluation have more at stake than anyone else, other than the player. To suggest incompetence, or willful neglect is absolute foolishness.
September 30th, 2012 at 5:23 PM ^
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that there are 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes, and that this could be as much as the 3rd leading cause of death in the nation.
I realize this isn't the same thing, but just sayin'.
September 30th, 2012 at 5:33 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 8:22 PM ^
I'm with you. There is too much attention to this nowadays for the medical staff to take any chances. If there was any suggestion of unconsciousness he wouldn't have played at all that day and maybe not next week either. If he did not pass his neurologic tests (this link says he passed) then he would not have played.
I did not see the play. Even if I had, there are other reasons to lay motionless other than unconsciousness; I think this is something folks on here are missing. For example, a neck "stinger" could make your arms or feet go numb for a moment and the natural reaction is to lie motionless. In fact, that is what the above link is asserting.
Ultimately, although doctors can make a mistake, this is the less likely possibility.
September 30th, 2012 at 8:27 PM ^
That is a plausible explaination (unlike the BS "having the wind knocked out of him" that was broadcast). Question though: should a player go right back in after having a neck stinger? I'm not familiar with that injury or if there are any lasting effects.
September 30th, 2012 at 8:48 PM ^
It is BS that this was "the wind knocked out of him".
A stretched nerve can make you go numb or have electrical shocks shoot through you. In the video you linked, Gholston is moving and not unconscious (and he's supporting his weight with his right arm and leg).
As for whether he should have come back in, that's a good question. My guess is the medical staff were so focused on concussion (which he apparently did not have) that they may not have considered the other alternatives as extensively. Could he have had a fractured c-spine (or could he still have one) or an atlanto-axial dislocation? Maybe... I hope he's gotten his CT and MRI by now...
September 30th, 2012 at 3:51 PM ^
There is an amazing amount of trust being put in the judgement of doctors because they're doctors and therefore would never, ever make a bad decision about somebody else's health.
Yet virtually every day in this country a duly-certified and well-educated doctor—who has forgotten more about medicine than any of us will ever know—will nonetheless make a catastrophically bad decision that will seriously compromise the health, if not the life, of a patient, and that doctor, and perhaps the hospital, will end up in court.
My own brother-in-law, already recuperating from knee replacement surgery, passed out with a very high fever and ended up in the hospital with what turned out to be a very serious infection. For whatever reason, the attending ER physician decided to drastically restrict his fluid intake, with the result that he was very close to complete renal failure by the time my sister intervened and started raising hell. A different physician was assigned to him, he immediately recognized the damage being done by fluid restrictions while fighting a serious infection, and put him on IV fluids. He was close to losing both kidneys, but thankfully that was staved off. Neither my BIL or my sister ever got a satisfactory explanation for the actions of the first physician.
I would never automatically trust the judgement of any physician on the sidelines simply because they're the ones with the medical license on their wall.
September 30th, 2012 at 4:06 PM ^
Who are you going to trust then? If the player insists he's okay and the doctor backs him up on that, what do you do if you're the coach?
September 30th, 2012 at 6:14 PM ^
You are right, Don. I spent many years when I was still practicing law defending medical malpractice cases.
Medical mistakes are made, and lives are often saved because of the intervention of a loved one, or a nurse.
I think in this case, Gholston simply took a little nap on the field. Clearly nothing to worry about.
October 1st, 2012 at 2:50 PM ^
Self-edited. By me.
I'm all for making fun of Will Gholston, one of the most troubling football players in the conference, and the anti-hero of last year's UM-MSU YouTube Film Festival.
But I saw some of the ugliness in the comments above, and just for my own sake I decided that the business of Gholston's probably-ignored concussion is a very serious matter; for the MSU staff as well as Gholston. So I edited my earlier snark.
There are very big questions now outstanding for Dantonio: Did Will Gholston lose consciousness after the hit from his teammate in tackling Braxton Miller? If Gholston did not lose consciousness, what exactly are we seeing on the video of that play? How else to explain it, other than a helmet-to-helmet hit that knocked him out? Is there any explanation as to why Gholston went back in to the game? If the medical staff ruled out a concussion, as well as the possibility of a concussion, how did they do that? Describe exactly, and tell us who it was who made the decision to clear him to play?
September 30th, 2012 at 5:50 PM ^
Another question about Gholston is why he missed practice last week (and as a result was not allowed to start). Neither Dantonio nor Narduzzi were forthcoming about the reason when they were asked. They gave a couple of non-answers and the reporters gave up trying to get a straight forward answer and just moved on to something else.
September 30th, 2012 at 5:51 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 6:17 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 6:17 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 6:46 PM ^
October 1st, 2012 at 12:02 AM ^
they might ask miller if they wanted to know the real answer. i suspect that, if they were to do any investigation, it'd be nothing but ass-covering.
September 30th, 2012 at 7:45 PM ^
September 30th, 2012 at 8:06 PM ^
You're Thai ping skilz kneed sum werk.
September 30th, 2012 at 8:53 PM ^
October 1st, 2012 at 9:50 AM ^
stop typing with your thumbs?
September 30th, 2012 at 8:14 PM ^
His coming back in reminded me of Crist coming back in to the Notre Dame game 2yrs ago.
September 30th, 2012 at 9:14 PM ^
I have been coming to this site for about a year now and this topic finally got me to join the discussion. I am a head coach of a junior high team. Each year I a required to take a CPR class and a coaching certification class. Combined these classes take about 5 hours. I would say 2 - 2.5 hours this year was spent on concussions. It is the hot topic. There is no way he should have went back into the game. He was knocked out because his brain hit the inside of his skull. If a kid I coach has symptoms of a concussion not only is he out for the rest of the game/ practice but he needs to complete 24 hours of monitoring(change in mood/ weird behavior) 24 more hours without physical excursion. 24-48 more hours of light exercise, finally you can start to have contact. I was told that it is not always the first hit that causes damage to the brain but the swelling and the second hit (even minor hit) that can cause serious injury. Just my thought and i am sure other schools and leagues have different rules.
Thanks love the discussions. Go BLUE!
September 30th, 2012 at 10:22 PM ^
October 1st, 2012 at 10:24 AM ^
practices this week and plays this coming weekend, and if so, how well.
October 1st, 2012 at 11:39 AM ^
October 1st, 2012 at 4:16 PM ^
I was amazed that he went back into the game. Knowing what we know now about post-concussion syndrome and the devastating effects of concussions on long term well being.