By: Alyssah Shear

When you walk down the halls, it can seem impossible to see who has had a brain injury at one time or another.

There are many types of brain injuries. Some are not as severe ,like a concussion, and some are more life threatening, like brain tumors, but many of us Wheat Ridge High School students are unaware that brain injuries exist in our own backyard. Freshman Nigel Byers, who has experienced concussions  shared that brain injuries do effect our community.

“ Brain injuries affect a community because they show us that bad things can happen to everyone.” A junior named Elijah Lopez, has shown the effect that brain injuries have on a society.

 “On April 28th, 2014, I woke up around 2:30 in the morning with a really bad headache. A few minutes after taking some ibuprofen, I ran to the bathroom and threw up. My mom, being a medical assistant, knew that there was something wrong, so she took me to Lutheran Hospital.” said Lopez when asked to tell his story.

Lopez had collapsed in the waiting room and became incoherent. The doctors put an IV in his arm and a tube down his throat because he was having a hard time breathing.

“After going into a CAT scan, the doctors found that I had a bleed in my brain. They then told my mom that Flight For Life would need to fly me to Children’s Hospital in Aurora. Once I arrived at Children’s they gave me medicine that kept me in coma.” Lopez’s doctor found a benign (non-cancerous) tumor which had caused the bleeding in his brain.

Lopez is now a junior and a survivor. He was in the hospital from April 28 2014 until July 3 2014. Although his brain tumor is a more severe case of a brain injury, there are several students who go through minor and major injuries everyday.

Wheat Ridge High School has had students with minor concussion which can cause memory loss and slurred speech, to major brain injuries such as brain tumors that can be life threatening.