Mikael Tam: Brain damaged or just French?
Just a day after Quebec Remparts’ defenceman Mikael Tam broke his silence on the devastating elbow that left him convulsing on the ice, some of Canada’s top neurosurgeons have gathered in Quebec City to review his press conference. The question: Is Tam, who suffered brain trauma and lost several teeth from Patrice Cormier’s hit, permanently brain damaged or just French?
In the clip below, Tam appears to be speaking very slowly and at one point actually uses the word “incredeebable,” but no definitive conclusions can be drawn so far, says Dr. Susan Stoebel, a neurosurgeon and the director of the Sports Concussion Clinic at Ottawa Rehab.
“While the boy certainly looks to have suffered major brain damage, the way he speaks may just be a result of living in Quebec,” says Stoebel. “This might take several weeks to figure out.”
Particularly interested in the panels findings is QMJHL commissioner Gilles Courteam, who must decide on a suspension for Cormier by Monday.
“I was hoping to be 100 per cent sure the boy was brain damaged before giving my ruling, but his English makes it almost impossible to discern,” says Courteam. “If he’s brain damaged, who’s to say half of Quebec isn’t?”
More on this story in the days to come.
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3 Comments
I have a lot of French friends and I am really offended by this on their behalf. You are an incredibly witty and charismatic writer but you’ve gone too far this time… psst: ‘well done’
Awesome title! lol
As the media relations specialist at Toronto Rehab I feel it’s important that your followers know that Dr. Karen Johnston did not comment on this story and would never say anything inappropriate and disrespectful like this. Dr. Johnston has a very strict policy of not commenting on high profile athlete injuries in order to ensure the privacy of the individual and not feed into any unethical public prognosis of the person’s medical condition.
I would ask you to remove Dr. Johnston’s name from it.