Dead Ohio athlete said he struggled with concussions

Rest in peace, Kosta

Over Thanksgiving time, Kosta Karageorge, a walk-on football player with Ohio State, climbed into a dumpster and shot himself at Thanksgiving time.

“I am sorry if I am an embarrassment but these concussions have my head all f***ed up,” he texted to his mother early Wednesday.

Family members said he’d been struggling with spells of confusion due to concussions.

If you Google “Kosta Karageorge” you’ll find plenty of news about it.

The coroner is now checking for signs of traumatic brain injury.

One of the awful things about this — and there are too many to list — is that he didn’t get help. I’m not sure if he could have, or to what extent, since I don’t know the state of his brain, and it might have been something else that messed up his head.

But who told him that concussion symptoms can get better?

Who told him that doing certain things in certain ways can help him get a grip on his life again?

Who showed him that the brain is changeable and can improve with time and effort, even if you feel really bad off at the moment?

The holidays are challenging to begin with, but dealing with them when you have a lot of concussion symptoms, makes them even harder.

What a waste. What a terrible, awful waste.

Kosta, I hope you can rest in peace.

Author: brokenbrilliant

I am a long-term multiple (mild) Traumatic Brain Injury (mTBI or TBI) survivor who experienced assaults, falls, car accidents, sports-related injuries in the 1960s, '70s, '80s, and '90s. My last mild TBI was in 2004, but it was definitely the worst of the lot. I never received medical treatment for my injuries, some of which were sports injuries (and you have to get back in the game!), but I have been living very successfully with cognitive/behavioral (social, emotional, functional) symptoms and complications since I was a young kid. I’ve done it so well, in fact, that virtually nobody knows that I sustained those injuries… and the folks who do know, haven’t fully realized just how it’s impacted my life. It has impacted my life, however. In serious and debilitating ways. I’m coming out from behind the shields I’ve put up, in hopes of successfully addressing my own (invisible) challenges and helping others to see that sustaining a TBI is not the end of the world, and they can, in fact, live happy, fulfilled, productive lives in spite of it all.

4 thoughts on “Dead Ohio athlete said he struggled with concussions”

  1. What a heartache. This journey is harder then people think. I continue to struggle with the issues of post concussive syndrome, there have been many challenges. I am a health care professional so my work place is supportive, I have health care professionals in my corner that get me and a family that has learned to accept the new me; things could have been so different. Now on the cusp of acceptance our son has just had a sizable brain tumor removed and displays so many features of my early head injury days, that we are in shock. Life is not meant to be easy but one month married and struggling is a journey I wish I could change for him. He came to the right house but I worry for the future.

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  2. This made me cry for the mother and father that will forever be lost without their beautiful son. That some how still in this day and age people don’t realize how traumatic and devastating a concussion can be, let alone “concussions” Sad that this did’t have to end this way-just to many gaps that need to be identified so this doesn’t happen again!

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