Towell’s death ‘must lead to change’
Scot suffered migraines in lead-up to fatal final bout
Fighters are guardians of own brain, warns surgeon
Boxers must flag up any doubts they have about head injuries – even if they have passed all medicals, a top consultant neurosurgeon said yesterday as the sport mourned its latest fatality with the death from brain trauma of Mike Towell.
Towell, 25, died from severe bleeding and swelling to his brain on Friday night, 24 hours after an eliminator bout in Glasgow for the British welterweight crown against Dale Evans – and it emerged yesterday that he had been complaining to his partner of headaches prior to the fight. He is the fourth British boxer to die in 22 years.
Tommy Gilmour, Towell’s manager, was unaware of the migraines the fighter was said to be suffering. His partner, Chloe Ross, with whom he has a young son, said on Facebook yesterday that she believed they were down to stress as Towell sought to retain his unbeaten status and keep his career on track.
Peter Hamlyn, who is leading research into concussion and head injuries, called for a “change of culture” among boxers. He told The Sunday
Telegraph that scans do not always show up neurological disorders.
Hamlyn, who undertook six lifesaving operations on Michael Watson, in 1991, said: “My phrase – and I talk to a lot of athletes involved in heavy contact sport, who have had head injuries, and are wondering whether it is safe to go back to be involved, or even if they have not had concussion and are having headaches – is that they are the guardians of their own brain. However smart you are as a neurosurgeon, there is not a physical sign that I can detect that is more sensitive about the wellbeing of their brain than their symptoms. You can have people profoundly symptomatic from concussion and all the scans are negative – so there just isn’t a test which shows it up.
“If they are suffering from any symptoms, then they certainly need to report those and have them taken seriously. And if they have a pile of tests, and the tests are all negative, and they still have the symptoms, it doesn’t mean it is safe to ignore them.”
Hamlyn agreed boxing had become safer in the past decade. But there had to be further change – like that in rugby and American football.
He said: “What has happened should act as a reminder that fighters need to be in top fitness. If any neurological conditions show themselves, then fighters should always err on the side of caution.”
Towell died at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, 12 hours after being taken off a life support machine. The boxer’s family were at his bedside during his final hours and were joined by Gilmour.
A boxing source said: “Tommy Gilmour is a very experienced manager and there’s no doubt that if Mike Towell had told him he was having headaches Tommy would not have let the lad fight.
“It was an important bout for him and he may have deliberately kept it hidden from his team. That may have resulted in what is a tragic outcome.”