Florida Injury Lawyers Blog

Like many in South Florida, our Miami-Dade catastrophic injury attorneys have been following the story of 15-year-old Josie Lou Ratley. Ratley is the Deerfield Beach middle schooler who was badly beaten by another teenager after she sent him a text message he interpreted as an insult to his recently deceased brother. Ratley had been in the hospital for six weeks after the March 17 incident and was transferred to a rehabilitation center afterward to relearn life skills like walking and getting dressed. But as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported June 1, Ratley has left the rehab center and is recuperating at home, with frequent outpatient visits to the center. The move does not reflect how well Ratley has gotten, the newspaper said, but will save money that she will need during her long recovery.

Ratley sustained brain damage in the beating. The newspaper did not report on the extent of the damage, but a nonprofit organization that counters teen violence says she has trouble writing her name and recognizing days of the week, suggesting serious damage. Her family had relied on Medicaid for part of her medical care, the newspaper said, but it won’t cover an indefinite stay at the rehab center. For that reason, her family decided to move her home and allow her to be treated as an outpatient. The move makes the best possible use of donations private parties have made toward her care, the family’s attorney said. Another fundraiser is planned for later this month. The teenager accused of beating her, 15-year-old Wayne Treacy, is charged as an adult with attempted first-degree murder, and 13-year-old Kayla Manson is charged as an accomplice in juvenile court.

This sad situation, in which money limits access to needed medical treatment, is unfortunately familiar to our West Palm Beach catastrophic injury lawyers. Brain injuries are extremely expensive to treat, reaching seven figures over a lifetime for more severely injured patients. Depending on their injuries, victims of brain injuries may need months or years of rehabilitation like Ratley is undergoing; long-term help with daily life; and long-term medical monitoring. Medicaid and Medicare have limits, as this story shows. To make matters worse, adult victims may no longer be able to do their jobs, which means they lose an income suddenly and perhaps permanently. This is a difficult financial burden for any family to carry. However, if the injury was someone else’s fault, victims may be able to recover the money they need from that person, or his or her insurance company, through a personal injury lawsuit.

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As West Palm Beach brain injury attorneys, we were pleased to see that another NFL player plans to help scientists better understand how the brain is damaged. NBC Miami reported Feb. 1 that Zach Thomas, a former linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, will donate his brain to medical science after his death. Thomas spent 12 seasons with the Dolphins before joining the Dallas Cowboys and, most recently, the Kansas City Chiefs. He has agreed to donate his brain to the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy at Boston University’s School of Medicine. The center runs a registry of brain donations from current and former athletes, from which it hopes to learn more about brain injuries.

Specifically, the CSTE is studying a neurodegenerative disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Also called dementia pugilistica or punch-drunk syndrome, CTE is a progressive neurological disorder suffered by people who have taken many blows to the brain, especially athletes in high-risk sports like football, boxing and hockey. It can manifest as early-onset dementia, Parkinson’s-like symptoms, speech problems, memory loss, paranoia and impulse control problems. The CSTE hopes to use athletes’ brains to learn both how to prevent these problems and how they could be cured. The donation from Thomas may be particularly valuable because he is notorious for undergoing multiple concussions on the field, but remaining an enthusiastic participant in the game. The NFL has attracted criticism because it until recently denied any link between football and former players’ mental problems, which denied disability pensions to some.

Our Miami-Dade brain injury lawyers are delighted that Thomas will be joining more than 250 other current and former athletes who are in the registry. Publicly announcing involvement in the CSTE is seen as a career-killer by some athletes, who don’t want potential teams’ management to see them as too injured to hire. However, donating to the brain tissue registry could have a major positive effect on future athletes at all levels, including youth and school athletes who aren’t as well-protected as the professionals. By providing a detailed medical history while they are still alive, then allowing scientists to examine their neurological systems after death, these athletes can help scientists understand the relationship between their symptoms and the physical damage their brains take.

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