{"id":38068,"date":"2021-02-23T23:45:38","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T00:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=38068"},"modified":"2021-02-24T01:01:22","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T01:01:22","slug":"sad-spiral-for-player-who-copped-51-concussions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=38068","title":{"rendered":"Sad spiral for player who copped 51 concussions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Parramatta<\/a> and Gold Coast star Brett Horsnell is trialling a radical treatment from America used to treat NFL players struggling with the after-effects of concussion after being knocked out a staggering 51 times in his career.<\/p>\n

A tough back-rower who played for 10 seasons in rugby league's top grade, Horsnell turned 50 last year but his life is in ruins after the repeated head knocks.<\/p>\n

"I get headaches, I can't do running writing, I have vertigo so bad that I can't shower because I would fall over," he told Wide World of Sports.<\/p>\n

\"Sport<\/p>\n

"I'm losing the eyesight in one eye\u2026 I have depression big time, and short term memory loss – every day I forget where I left my keys. I can't work so I'm on disability.<\/p>\n

"I know a lot of blokes my vintage with similar problems\u2026 although maybe not as severe. Most are in denial and just dealing with it with drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n

"I've been to a bunch of doctors – they tell me the same thing – it's not multiple sclerosis, or Alzheimer's, or dementia.<\/p>\n

"That only leaves one thing – the after-effects of all the head knocks I took back in the '80s and '90s.<\/p>\n

"Back then, you would be out cold on the grass, they would put smelling salts under your nose to wake you and say 'Get back out there'.<\/p>\n

"We didn't know any better."<\/p>\n

Around six months ago Horsnell, who lives on the Gold Coast, heard about a doctor using radiation treatment to treat head trauma on the Sunshine Coast.<\/p>\n

\"Crawf's<\/p>\n

"I was at the stage where I was ready to try anything," he said.<\/p>\n

"It involves red light therapy and has achieved good results with NFL players in America, where it is a big problem for blokes my age.<\/p>\n

"I've been noticing a slight improvement but suffered a setback recently. A drunk driver wrote off my car and I am struggling to get up to the Sunshine Coast for the therapy.<\/p>\n

"Someone started a charity thing online to raise money to buy me a new car<\/a> – it's nice to be remembered."<\/p>\n

And how does Horsnell know he had exactly 51 concussions?<\/p>\n

"My mum has every game I played on old VHS tapes," he explained. "We went through the games one week and counted them up\u2026 it was scary.<\/p>\n

"And then you add to that all the blows that didn't knock me out but also had an effect on me – I hope modern day players are taken better care of."<\/p>\n

\"Smith<\/p>\n

Horsnell launched a lawsuit against the NRL in the mid 2010s, but dropped it as his legal costs mounted and the case became more and more complicated.<\/p>\n

"I don't want to make money out of this," he said. "I just want some kind of quality of life back."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/strong><\/em> clicking here!<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Parramatta and Gold Coast star Brett Horsnell is trialling a radical treatment from America used to treat NFL players struggling with the after-effects of […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38068"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38068"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38070,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38068\/revisions\/38070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}