Orig Post www.pbs.org | Re-Post Duerson Foundation 12/17/2015
A forensic pathologist, Omalu conducted the autopsy of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster, which led to his discovery of a new disease that he named chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. He is currently the chief medical examiner of San Joaquin County, Calif. and a professor in the UC Davis Department of Medical Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He spoke to FRONTLINE’s Michael Kirk on March 25, 2013 – Here is that interview…
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So you walk into this autopsy room or whatever you call it, and there on the table is a big, heavy man, Mike Webster. Tell me the story of you walking in that room, what you see, what you do. …
… So I was on call that Saturday morning. I woke up, fixed myself a cup of coffee. I was single. I was living in a condo. So I turned on the news to see what was going on, who was killing someone somewhere someplace.
Because you knew that would appear on your table at some moment.
Every day. (Laughs.)
You mean you watched the news and see who dies.
To see who dies and what my caseload will be. But ironically, all the channels were talking about this very prominent guy. I did not even know his name, Mike Webster.
See, I grew up in Africa, in Nigeria. I never knew, I never had any reasonable encounter with football. I saw football on Sky News. I thought there were people dressed like extraterrestrials, you know, like they were going to Mars or something, headgears and shoulder pads. And I wondered why as a child why did they have to dress that way.
So they were talking about this prominent guy who sold his Super Bowl rings, who did not compete well in the field of life after his retirement from football, who led somewhat an ignominious life from prominence to obscurity.
Suddenly I wondered — I’m like, “Wait a minute.” If he played football for them to wear helmets and all those protective gear, that meant it was a violent game. That meant they were exposed to repeated trauma to justify the need to wear a helmet. And then I said to myself, if he had such a bizarre life after football, could this not be similar to what we see in boxers, dementia pugilistica? …
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Did you have any idea that he was on the table waiting for you?
No, no, no —
In fact, you figured —
— because he died in a hospital. He had a heart attack. So I dismissed it.
And what difference would that make? What difference would it make that he died in a hospital?
Well, remember, I work for a medical examiner. By law I would perform autopsies on cases that fell under the jurisdiction. If you have a known cause of death and if you were under the care of a physician, it may not fall under the jurisdiction of the coroner if there is a physician willing to sign the death certificate. …
So I got to work. There were the TV caravans. There was commotion at the office. So I came in, I parked, and I walked through people, and I got into the office, and I asked, “What is going on?” One of the technicians said, “Oh, Mike Webster was on the table.” So I said, “Who is Mike Webster?” And everybody looked at me like: “Where is he from? Is he from outer — who is this guy who doesn’t know Mike Webster in Pittsburgh?”
So I pulled the guy to the corner. I said, “No, who is he?” I didn’t know. He teased me and said: “Oh, are you nuts? What do you mean you don’t know Mike Webster?” So I said: “Wait a minute. Is he the guy they are talking about on TV?” He said, “Yes, yes, he is the guy.”…
I went back to my office to find out, to review his case file, why he was brought into the office. It turned out that a treating physician had listed post-concussion syndrome on his death certificate as a contributory factor to his death. Post-concussion syndrome is a traumatic disease, and if a traumatic disease qualifies as a contributory factor to death, that would categorize the case as an accidental manner of death, therefore falling into the jurisdiction of the coroner, of the medical examiner. …
There is a practice I have. I am a spiritual person. I’m a Catholic. I treat my patients, the dead patients, as live patients. I believe there is life after death. And I talk to my patients. I talk to them, not loudly but quietly in my heart when I look at them. Before I do an autopsy, I must have a visual contact with the face. I do that. I’ll come out of respect; I’ll look at the face.