“We’re really at an infant stage in terms of our clinical ability to assess traumatic brain injury,” a medical expert said.

Before he ended his life, Ryan Larkin made his family promise to donate his brain to science.

The 29-year-old Navy SEAL was convinced years of exposure to blasts had badly damaged his brain, despite doctors telling him otherwise. He had downloaded dozens of research papers on traumatic brain injury out of frustration that no one was taking him seriously, his father said.

“He knew,” Frank Larkin said. “I’ve grown to understand that he was out to prove that he was hurt, and he wasn’t crazy.”

In 2017, a postmortem study found that Ryan Larkin, a combat medic and instructor who taught SEALs how to breach buildings with explosives, had a pattern of brain scarring unique to service members who’ve endured repeated explosions.

  • @naeap
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    83 months ago

    Was also sadly my experience. Got a cut because of a collapse, told them that I have heart failure since a kid and this felt strange, but they never did any tests, just wanted to send me to the psych unit.

    That was a pretty fucked evening…

    • @Ragnarok314159
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      23 months ago

      What’s the rest of the story? (If you don’t mind sharing) This feels wildly incomplete.

      • @naeap
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        33 months ago

        Well, the doctor that sewed my cut was quite reasonable and I could at least leave.

        All that happened because of an anonymous call, that I just had a long term relationship behind me.

        Thing is, that they just ignored my initial report, as they immediately switched to the story of an anonymous caller. Which is a pretty shitty move

        Anything more in details, and I’ll completely lose my pseudonymity, sorry