Don Walker reporting in the Journal Sentinel Sept. 22, 2011 comments about Justin Greenwood who, just eight years ago, was on the kickoff team for the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Blugolds.
A four-sport star in high school in Park Falls, Greenwood, wearing No. 42, had come to Eau Claire to play outside linebacker. A junior, Greenwood and his fellow Blugolds were playing UW-River Falls in River Falls.
“It was on a kickoff. I was running down, took a little hit, a mild hit from the side. I got up and I started to lose consciousness. I just started walking off the field and collapsed on the sideline,” he said.
“He was the wedge-breaker for us on kickoffs,” recalled Nels Fredrickson, the team’s quarterback. “He came up to me and said, ‘What the heck happened to me?’ And then he just fell down.”
His mother, Glenda, was in the stands.
“I wasn’t watching the kickoff,” she said. “All of a sudden he ran off the field. We only had 10 guys on the field. I was watching him on the sidelines. He was squatting down. He was putting his hands on his head. He was losing consciousness, I think.”
His mother, sensing something was wrong, hopped the fence and went to the field. “They had to call an ambulance. He was turning blue. They said to me, ‘Well, it’s cold out.’ I was watching his every move. His brain was swelling, and it was closing off his air passages.”
Greenwood was intubated. Eventually, he was flown by helicopter to the Twin Cities for treatment, rehabilitation and therapy.
It has been a long, hard road for Greenwood, now 30, and his mother.
Greenwood left school, never to return. He can’t drive a car. He has short-term memory problems. When he watches a movie on television, he’ll forget most of it afterward.
He wears special glasses that help him with side-to-side vision.
“When he gets excited, he talks faster,” his mother said. “He has to take a deep breath and slow down. But he’s had to overcome a lot of obstacles. His life is not the same.”
“I can’t do what I want,” Greenwood said. “It’s about acceptance at this point.”
Greenwood is not alone. According to the Brain Injury Association of Wisconsin, an estimated 1.7 million children and adults in the U.S. sustain a traumatic brain injury and another 795,000 individuals sustain an acquired brain injury from non-traumatic causes each year. Currently, more than 3.1 million children and adults in the U.S. live with a lifelong disability as a result of traumatic brain injury and an estimated 1.1 million have a disability due to stroke, according to the association.
Unfortunately brain and spinal cord injury is very debilitating however when the HandTutor, ArmTutor, LegTutor and 3DTutor is introduced to physical rehabilitation programs for those and many other indications, patient improvement is recognized in a relatively short time.
The HandTutor, ArmTutor, LegTutor and 3DTutor are devices that are FDA and CE certified and are being used in leading U.S. and foreign hospitals. They have had success in improving movement of the hand, wrist, elbow, knee, ankle, foot and other joints of the body following traumatic injuries. The devices have been effective for post stroke victims as well as for those suffering from Cerebral Palsy, spinal cord and brain injuries, Apraxia, MS, Parkinsons and other movement disabilities. Intensive active exercise can reduce the rate of deterioration and this is what the ”Tutor” devices provide.
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