Chilling warning for Australia in wake of New York City bloodbath

News.com.au

7 days ago

The horrific New York City shooting has sparked concerns about the ramifications in Australia, particularly across some of the country's most prolific sporting codes.
Details emerging after gunmen Shane Devon Tamura killed four people in an NYC office, before turning the gun on himself, revealed his likely intended target was the offices of the National Football League.
The NFL's offices were in the same building but weren't accessible through the elevator Tamura mistakenly used.
A note left by the shooter revealed he blamed playing American football (which he played in his youth) for his supposed struggle with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurological disease plaguing many Australian athletes in contact sports.
'Football gave me CTE and it cause me to drink a gallon of antifreeze. You can't go against the NFL. They'll squash you,' Tamura wrote in a in a three-page note found in his wallet.
'Please study brain for CTE. I'm sorry. The league knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximise profits.
'They failed us.'
After his shooting spree, Tamura shot himself in the chest, suspected to be in a bid to avoid his brain in hopes of it being studied.
Despite suspecting he had CTE, the condition can only be diagnosed definitively after death. The brain disorder is a form of dementia and occurs typically from repeated concussions and head trauma during a sporting career.
Fans of Australian sport will be all too familiar with CTE and the long term impact of athlete concussion, including suicide.
Rugby league great and premiership winning coach Paul Green tragically took his own life in 2022, a post mortem analysis revealing he had a severe form of CTE.
Across codes, AFL legends Danny Frawley and Shane Tuck had the same diagnosis after their suicides in 2019 and 2020.
With the sports bringing in new measures in recent years in hopes of stamping out blunt contact to the head, there are major concerns about the impact of the disease on players given it cannot be diagnosed until it is too late.
While yet to be diagnosed, the NYC shooters claims of CTE paint a scary portrait for an affliction Australia's sport is starting to learn much more about.
Sports Medicine Australia CEO Jamie Crain warned a lack of understanding around the risks of concussion in professional and community sport in Australia could pose serious long term health issues if not managed properly.
But the expert believes this country 'does quite well' dealing with minimising concussion, but after the events in the US, admits people will be on alert to CTE and the possible effects.
The priority instead of trying to completely eradicate concussions should be to manage them when they happen.
'Because it will happen, it's just an inherent part of contact sport, certainly with football and rugby and those types of sports,' he said.
While Crain believes rules may need to be tweaked, the challenge is striking a balance, not becoming so alarmed that parents take their kids out of playing contact sport, as that poses its own issues.
'We might then indirectly encourage a sedentary lifestyle and that brings itself a lot of potential long term health issues.
'There could inevitably be some rule changes that do need to take place within those particular sports to minimise the risk. I think that we won't be able to eradicate it.
'But we do need to manage it and then when concussion does happen, we look after those players in the best possible way.'