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Report: Aaron Hernandez suffered most severe CTE ever found in person his age
By Cody McClure
Published:
Former Florida tight end Aaron Hernandez suffered the most severe case of CTE ever discovered in a person his age, according to a report from The Washington Post.
The damage suffered from CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, would have been enough to have “significantly affected his decision-making, judgment and cognition,” researches at Boston University reportedly said at a medical conference on Thursday.
Hernandez hanged himself with a bed sheet in April while serving a life prison sentence for the murder of Odin Lloyd in 2013.
Ann McKee, who is the head of Boston’s CTE Center, reportedly said Hernandez’s brain was “one of the most significant contributions to our work” because of its pristine condition, which gave the university a rare opportunity to study the disease in a 27-year-old.
Doctors found that Hernandez had Stage 3 CTE, which researchers had reportedly never seen in a brain younger than 46 years old, McKee said.
“The extent of that damage represents another signpost in football’s ongoing concussion crisis, which has seen professional players weigh early retirements and parents grapple with whether to allow their young sons to take up the sport. The findings released Thursday will only heighten those concerns,” the report stated.
Cody McClure is an SEC Football Writer for Saturday Down South. He lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he also co-hosts a midday sports radio show for FOX Sports. Cody previously worked for Athlon Sports.
