The football world is still reeling from the concussion controversy surrounding the Miami Dolphins star quarterback who suffered not one, but two frightening injuries during week four of the NFL regular season.
A team doctor has been fired and the NFL is expected to update concussion protocols.
Players, fans and TV viewers held their breath after Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa appeared to suffer two head injuries days apart.
“The initial injury, I was like, he's going to be out for a while,” said Dr. Rob Dickerman, a Frisco-based neurosurgeon with Neuro Texas.
But Tagovailoa was cleared by doctors to return to play Thursday.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
Then Sunday, he suffered another injury after a sack left him seemingly unconscious.
“I was shocked,” said Dr. Dickerman.
Tagovailoa laid motionless with his fingers contorted in front of his helmet before he was carted off the field.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
“It means at that level of brain stem, it’s serious,” said Dr. Dickerman.
He says amino acids have long been proven to help people recover from traumatic brain injuries.
But Dr. Dickerman says his newly-published study shows amino acids help prevent them, too.
In a lab, he says the brains of mice who were given specially-formulated amino acids before and after brain injuries looked no different than mice with no injuries.
“The group we gave amino acids before the injury behaved like the ones that didn’t get any injury, so statistically, the statistics were off the chart,” he said.
He says the experiment's model is accepted as a human model, and that he's in talks with some professional and college football teams who could soon begin taking the powdered supplements in water before games.
“It'll get there and I'm happy it will because I do think we can save a lot of people,” he said.
Promising research may move the ball forward while keeping athletes safe.
Tagovailoa is reportedly healing and felt well enough to attend some meetings this week.
There's no timetable for his return to football but he will not play this Sunday against the Jets.
