Head Injury

L. Alan Keene, you're all wet on your article "Save boaters from themselves" (May 18). Your comparison to cell phones while driving and helmets for motorcycles is overstated. Using cell phones while driving, like drunk-driving, directly endangers the lives of others. The chances of critical injury or death from falling into the water are vastly lower than head injury in a motorcycle crash. People like you would legislate every personal freedom we have away. What's next — you have to wear a PFD ( personal flotation device)

A Johns Hopkins University student was in critical condition Saturday with a head injury after he was struck by a car at the intersection of St. Paul and W. 33rd streets, police said. The 21-year-old sophomore is expected to survive, as is another student who was hit by the car at about 2:15 a.m. Saturday. Police said the driver who struck the students at the intersection near the university might have been intoxicated. Hopkins Dean of Student Life Susan K. Boswell identified the students in an email to the campus community as Benjamin Zucker and freshman Rachel Cohen, 18. Police said Zucker was in critical condition but is expected to survive.

Archbishop Spalding junior first baseman Nick Freeberger sits on a dugout bench. The evening sun is shining on his boyish face, and he smiles. It has been a good day. He helped his No. 2 Cavaliers to victory with a three-run home run. That would be enough to make most high school baseball players grin, but there is more behind this display of happiness than a single game. To look at him now, no one would suspect that a little more than a month ago, screws were ground into his head for a halo to support a broken neck, and that the chances of his playing baseball this season or perhaps ever were in doubt.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh provided his most hopeful outlook on Sergio Kindle, saying the second-round linebacker has a chance to play in 2011. Harbaugh had previously been guarded about Kindle's future ever since the team's top draft pick from last season fractured his skull by falling down two flights of stairs in July. But Harbaugh's tone was decidedly different when addressing Kindle during a fan forum conference call Wednesday night. "I'm more optimistic now than ever before that he has a chance to come back and play," Harbaugh said.

Natalie Simmons stood in the fire-blackened kitchen of her mother's house in Windsor Mill on Monday morning and breathed a sigh of relief that the blaze hadn't been worse. "I'm already gearing myself up to see what needs to be done," she said, not long after her mother, Edna Simmons, 76, had jumped out a second-floor window and landed in a bush as smoke filled the house on Bexhill Road. "She was pale; she looked like she was in shock," the younger woman said, referring to the moment she saw her mother in an ambulance after being summoned by a police officer from her home around the corner.

City detectives have determined that a 48-year-old man who died more than a month ago of unexplained head injuries in the Greenspring neighborhood, was the victim of a homicide. Officers were called to the 2600 block of Quantico Ave. at about 12:30 a.m. July 23 and found Robert Lockett suffering from head injuries, said city police spokesman Donny Moses. Lockett, of the 4200 block of Pimlico Ave., was "combative and incoherent," police said, and was taken to Sinai Hospital, where doctors said his injuries appeared to be consistent with a fall.

It was no big deal, said University of Maryland football player Devonte Campbell. The tight end remembers catching a short pass in a practice scrimmage last month, lowering his shoulders as he turned downfield, and ramming helmet-to-helmet with an oncoming defender. "I had a nice little headache," the third-year player said with a smile. "It wasn't intentional, you know. Just happens from playing the sport. " It happens a lot. As Maryland and Navy begin their seasons today at M&T Bank Stafium — renewing a 105-year-old rivalry — the public's focus will naturally be drawn to the game's most jarring tackles.

Fall sports ,like football, lacrosse, and soccer, bring risk of concussion injuries to Maryland students. Recent media attention has been brought to the increasing number of concussions being treated at emergency departments across the country. New research is pointing to the risk of permanent brain injury for children with concussions. It is important players, parents, trainers, game officials, and coaches know what to look for and how to treat a child with a concussion. Coaches and athletic trainers must especially keep informed of the latest developments in post concussion treatment as o-going research is changing how the "game is played.

Sergio Kindle is in stable condition after injuring his head only days before the team's rookies are scheduled to report to training camp, the latest off-field incident for the Ravens' first pick in the 2010 draft. Kindle, 23, suffered the injury in a house he was visiting Thursday night in Austin, Texas, where it is believed he fell down two flights of stairs. The former University of Texas linebacker has improved the past couple of days and should make a full recovery, according to a league source.

A 40-year-old deaf woman was struck by a Light Rail train Friday night at South Howard and West Camden streets, a Maryland Transit Administration spokesman said. The unidentified woman was standing near the Convention Center stop with a companion at about 8:20 p.m. when she stepped out in front of the northbound train, said Terry Owens, spokesman with the Maryland Transit Administration. He said the train operator sounded the horn, but the woman did not hear it and she did not see the train because she had her back to it. The women was taken to Maryland Shock Trauma for non-life-threatening head injuries, Owens said.