HIGHLY UNLIKELY: Don’t Believe Freddie Gray Severed His Own Spine AND Crushed His Voice Box In Police Van — That Requires A ‘sudden, Traumatic Blow,’ Doctor Says

Is it pos­si­ble that Freddie Gray could have sev­ered his own spine and crushed his own voicebox?

From a med­ical stand­point, it is unlike­ly that the 25-year-old Baltimore man injured him­self in the back of that van. The sever­i­ty of his injuries seem too grave for him to have done that to him­self sim­ply by thrash­ing around or bang­ing his head on some­thing. It is more like­ly that there was some type of direct blow to either the front or back of his neck, or some­where along the spinal cord along his back. How does a spinal cord injury hap­pen? A spinal cord injury is “dam­age to the spinal cord that results in a loss of func­tion such as mobil­i­ty or feel­ing.” This type of injury is most often caused by a trau­mat­ic blow of the kind that would be sus­tained in a car acci­dent, severe fall or an act of violence.

There must be a sud­den, trau­mat­ic blow to the spine that frac­tures, dis­lo­cates, crush­es or com­press­es one or more of the ver­te­brae, or when a gun shot or knife pen­e­trates the spinal cord. After a spinal cord injury, bleed­ing, inflam­ma­tion and swelling occurs, and flu­id builds up in and around the spinal cord.

POLICE VAN THAT FREDDIE GRAY RODE IN MADE UNREPORTED STOP

Without imme­di­ate treat­ment, this can lead to per­ma­nent paral­y­sis, or in Gray’s case, death. Baltimore police offi­cers have already been sus­pend­ed for fail­ing to get Gray prompt med­ical care.

The high­er in the back or neck the spinal cord injury occurs, the more dys­func­tion a per­son will have as a result. So with a spinal cord injury that occurs from a blow to the neck, a per­son usu­al­ly los­es func­tion in the arms and legs.

The Washington Post on Wednesday obtained tes­ti­mo­ny alleged­ly giv­en by anoth­er pris­on­er who was in the van with Gray, who said he may have injured him­self dur­ing the ride in the back of the van to the police station.

The man said he could hear Gray “bang­ing against the walls” of the van and believed that he “was inten­tion­al­ly try­ing to injure him­self,” accord­ing to a police doc­u­ment quot­ed by the news­pa­per. They were sep­a­rat­ed by a met­al par­ti­tion, and the man did not actu­al­ly see Gray try­ing to harm himself.

As seen in a video tak­en by a wit­ness who saw Gray being put into the back of the van, Gray was being dragged by the cops into the van, and it seems as though he was unable to walk.

The abil­i­ty to con­trol your limbs after a spinal cord injury depends on where along the spinal cord the injury took place, and how severe the injury is. If Gray was show­ing signs of loss of func­tion in his legs before being put in the van, how could the injury have tak­en place in the van?

There are a num­ber of signs and symp­toms that can occur very short­ly after a per­son suf­fers a spinal injury. These include extreme back pain, pres­sure in the neck, head or back, weak­ness, loss of coör­di­na­tion or paral­y­sis in any part of the body, as well as dif­fi­cul­ty with bal­ance and walk­ing, impaired breath­ing after injury and odd­ly posi­tioned or twist­ed neck or back.

As seen on the video, Gray was clear­ly in pain, scream­ing that he was hurt, and could not walk. He was also hav­ing trou­ble breath­ing because he kept ask­ing for his inhaler.

Now, let’s talk about the crushed lar­ynx. Also known as a laryn­go­tra­cheal injury, a crushed lar­ynx is pret­ty rare in adults, except when there is blunt force trau­ma to the front of the neck, such as stran­gu­la­tion, or blows to the tra­chea from fists or feet.

BENJAMIN TODD JEALOUS: BLACK, WHITE, BLUE, AND FREDDIE GRAY

This is usu­al­ly caused by a car acci­dent when the pas­sen­ger does not have a seat­belt on, in the front seat, or dri­ving, and there are no pro­tec­tive airbags.

In this case, the per­son in the front seat or dri­ver is thrown for­ward and the front of the neck either hits the dash­board or steer­ing wheel.

The direct blow to the front of the neck crush­es the lar­ynx against the spine of the neck. This type of injury can also occur dur­ing sports, fights, falling for­ward onto a blunt object such as the han­dle bars of a bicy­cle, or dur­ing stran­gu­la­tion. Depending on the sever­i­ty of the impact, the lar­ynx and tra­chea can com­press against the spine.

Is it pos­si­ble that Gray’s lar­ynx was crushed first, caus­ing the spinal cord injury? Maybe that caused the spinal cord injury. In order for this to hap­pen, there would have to have been a direct blow to the front of his neck, which is unlike­ly to have been a self-imposed injury in the back of the van.

This could also explain why Gray had trou­ble breath­ing. If the blow to the front of the neck is severe and/​or low, the lar­ynx and tra­chea can become com­plete­ly sep­a­rat­ed, caus­ing air­way obstruc­tion and dif­fi­cul­ty breathing.

With this type of injury, the neck must be imme­di­ate­ly sta­bi­lized to pre­vent wors­en­ing of unrec­og­nized cer­vi­cal spine injuries. Gray alleged­ly asked for med­ical atten­tion mul­ti­ple times, yet he did not receive it until after he arrived at the police sta­tion, where he was found uncon­scious in the back of the van.