The suit filed by Matthew Gee's widow said he died in 2018 at just 49 years old from permanent brain damage.
Head injuries in football have recently received a lot of attention and a trial going on now could become a landmark case.In the past decade, college football players have brought hundreds of wrongful death and personal-injury lawsuits against the NCAA .
But Gee's case is only the second to go to trial with allegations that hits to the head led to chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE.“As we're understanding more and more about the disease, there appears to be more pushback about the positive agents, positive factors when that's actually become more established,” said Dr. Daniel H. Daneshvar a neuroscientist and brain injury physician.
“The best indicators for whether someone has CTE after they pass away right now appears to be whether they have problems with memory or problems with thinking, or what's called emotional mobility, which basically, means that have a short fuse,” said Daneshvar.His attorneys say the substance abuse issues were because of his CTE.