Head Injury

A 40-year-old Edgewood man is being held without bail at the Harford County Detention Center after a New Year's Day fight, with a domestic element, that became a shooting and led a judge to tell the suspect that if ever there was a case that cried out for a person to be held without bail, this was it. David Lamont Gregg, of the 3400 block of Periwinkle Way in Edgewood, is charged with first- and second-degree assault, reckless endangerment, use...

ENACT THE MANDATORY MOTORCYCLE HELMET LAWFrom: John HamiltonColumbiaOn Sept. 1, 1963, the state of Maryland enacted a mandatory motorcycle helmet-use law. This law was amended on May 29, 1979, to affect only persons under the age of 18.A bill to reinstate this law has been introduced in the Maryland legislature every year since then and has failed to pass.It is not a radical law -- 23 states already have them.Head-injured motorcycle riders have less than a 55 percent chance of ever returning to work.

A 64-year-old Severna Park man died yesterday in a tree-trimming accident, falling from the top of a 20-foot ladder, county police reported. The victim, Thomas Francis Degnan, was pronounced dead on the driveway of his home in the 100 block of Northway about 3:30 p.m., police said. A tree limb that he and a neighbor had been trimming fell and knocked Degnan from the ladder, and he appeared to have died instantly from a head injury, said Officer Charles Ravenell, a police spokesman.

When the annual US Lacrosse National Convention returns to the Baltimore Convention Center this weekend, a hot topic of discussion among the 5,000 coaches, officials and lacrosse enthusiasts expected to attend will be how to deal with concussions. The subject has drawn enormous media attention lately, mainly because of new guidelines set by the NFL that require players who exhibit concussion symptoms to be removed from games and practices. Because lacrosse is a contact sport and one of the fastest-growing team sports in the United States - youth participation reportedly has grown by more than 500 percent since 1999 to nearly 250,000 - educating coaches and parents about concussions is seen as critical.

US Lacrosse President and CEO Steve Stenersen today issued comments on proposed Maryland House of Delegates Bill 1123, which if passed by the Maryland General Assembly would legislate that girls lacrosse players in the state wear protective headgear as per specifications set forth by a state task force. The bill, which was introduced by Dels. Dana Stein and Jon Cardin on Feb. 8, would mandate protective headgear for girls lacrosse programs. Specifically, the bill would target programs organized for the recreational athletic competition or instruction of girls who are under age 19. A spokesperson for Cardin clarified, noting that this would apply to youth recreational programs and public schools, including high schools.

The father of Neil Caricofe, the Hagerstown wrestling champion who died after Ocean City police tried to subdue him, said yesterday that his son suffered a possible broken nose, swelling around his eyes and a bruise on the back of his head before he collapsed in a hotel parking lot and died Friday.Richard Caricofe, 54, also said in a telephone interview from his Hagerstown home that he did not hold Ocean City police liable and that he thought Neil, 33, probably was at fault. He said he thinks police did the best job they could to subdue his son at the Fenwick Inn."

A 40-year-old Edgewood man was flown to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center on Tuesday night and was later arrested after a shooting in a domestic dispute in Belcamp, according to Harford County emergency officials. Paramedics responded to the 4200 block of Chapelgate Court for a report of a shooting about 5:50 p.m. and found David Woodfolk, 35, bleeding from a head injury. He told police that David LaMont Gregg, of the 3400 block of Periwinkle Way in Edgewood, had struck him in the head with a handgun, police said.

Although a jury refused to hold Darel Alston responsible for the death of a Baltimore tavern owner beaten with a baseball bat last year, a Baltimore County Circuit Court judge today said he was convinced the Anne Arundel County man was partly responsible for the death.With that, Judge Joseph F. Murphy Jr. sentenced Alston, 19, of Hanover, to 20 years -- the maximum sentence -- for robbing Leonard Gerber. The 63-year-old Gerber was struck with an aluminum baseball bat during the robbery in May 1989 and died nearly two months later in the Shock-Trauma Unit in Baltimore.

A 28-year-old Landover man who was struck in the head with a beer bottle before hitting his head on the ground during a fight in the city's Curtis Bay neighborhood early Tuesday has died from his injuries, Baltimore Police said Wednesday. Cyrill Montel Holland, of the 7500 block of Greenleaf Road, was allegedly involved in a fight with several other men in the 1600 block of Cypress Street about 1:48 p.m. when he was assaulted, police said. As police approached the scene, an "unidentified female" warned the men in the fight that the police were approaching and two men "picked [Holland]