This is news that shook the world of American football. Last April, the former professional player Phillip adams shot six people before killing themselves. Among the victims, two children aged 9 and 5 who were at their grandparents’ home, also killed by the retired footballer. A terrible case, but certain elements discovered recently could explain the crazy gesture of this man.
This Tuesday, December 14, 2021, medical specialists who performed a post-mortem examination of Phillip Adams’ brain revealed that he was suffering froma degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). According to the expertise of neuropathologists at Boston University, the former player who retired in 2015 showed signs of brain damage “unusually serious”. ETC is mainly caused by repeated head injuries, linked to his former sporting activity. “He had an extraordinary amount of pathologies associated with the frontal lobe, the area of the brain behind the forehead”, specifies one of the directors of the establishment, Ann McKee.
It is shocking to hear how serious his condition was
Many behavioral symptoms can derive from this disease and some very serious such as depression, suicidal tendencies or paranoia. According to the family of Phillip Adams, the latter would have suffered “multiple concussions” during his career, which saw him move to Tom Brady’s New England Patriots. Shocked by the results, his family wanted to speak out: “We have a better understanding of the mental turmoil that Phillip faced in the last moments of his life. We are not surprised by these results. However, it is shocking to hear how severe his condition was.”.
The American Football League (NFL) has for several years been singled out for the dangerousness of contact between players and the numerous concussions that result from it. By the early 2010s, nearly 4,500 former players attacked the league and received $ 1 billion in compensation.