Video Transcription

What damage does a punch to the head cause?

So, if someone’s punched on the head, the head will suddenly jolt. The brain’s like jelly, and the jelly shakes, causing the fibers to tear. These are extraordinarily delicate fibers that may not cause the person to initially lose consciousness, but they may cause them to drop. When they drop to the ground, the brain goes back, hits the ground, and as it stops, everything shakes. It’s like when you’re sitting in a car and suddenly come to a jerky halt; you move forward, and the nerve cells in the brain tear.

The front of the brain jams up against the front of the skull, causing more damage there. The temporal lobes jam up against the front of the skull, causing more damage there as well. Not just in the brain, but particularly in an area called the brainstem. That’s an incredibly delicate part of the brain, not much bigger than my thumb. Every function of the body goes through that area. This causes major initial damage to the brain, which is basically irreparable.

What happens after that is a real problem. Hemorrhages occur, causing more damage, but then swelling sets in. This box won’t move, and because it’s in a fixed box, as the brain swells, the pressure in the brain goes up. It’s got nowhere to go. It’s in the box. If the skull is damaged and the skull is broken, it’s not going to expand enough. What sometimes happens is that the pressure gets so high, the brain will leak out of the skull. The brain can leak out of the nose, the ear, or the fracture, and that’s devastating. I mean, that’s bad. Frequently, people either die, and that’s the best outcome for them. Others may fall into a permanent living hell.

They’re lying in bed with no function at all, not able to communicate, no function of their bowel or bladder, not able to eat, being fed by tubes. It’s just a living hell—living hell for the patient, living hell for the family. That’s far worse than that. It’s like a death every day for the rest of their lives. It is the worst thing you can imagine, but it’s so bad that most people can’t imagine it. Certainly, most young people can’t imagine it. And this I’ve seen firsthand.

Video by Step Back Think