dr. julian bales was mccloy s neurosurgeon. the concept was in trying to rebuild his brain with what he was made from when he was an embryo in his mother s womb. reporter: rebuild his brain? yes. we gave him a very high, unprecedented dose to make sure we saturated and got high levels in the brain. i d just like to thank everybody for their thoughts and prayers. reporter: after the fish oil, mccloy made a dramatic, full recovery. the science is not clear. there have been no large studies, and it didn t always seem to work. but despite that, grant virgin s family, a combination of desperate and determined, decided to give it a try. i don t want to wait 20 years while they do a bunch of more studies to prove it really works. i don t need that. reporter: grant was given 20 grams of fish oil per day through his feeding tube. even more than randy mccloy got. in december 2012, nine weeks after his accident, and only two
major concerns over long-term damage from head injuries. this has been a big topic in the news the last few months. coaches there will limit contact to no more than a third of practice time. on top of that, full-speed, head-on blocking or tackling drills in which players line up more than three yards apart, they will now be banned. that is actually video from our story on nightline and world news, we interviewed dr. julian bales, the medical director for pop warner and leading the charge on cte and brain injuries coming out. he says you got to take the head out of the game. going to begin in youth level, which 70% of all nfl players started in pop warner. talking maybe 500,000 youth nationwide play pop warner each year. safety lessons, precautions take a hold at a young age they will carry over throughout their career, high school, college, pros as well. it sets the stage for safety being a priority. hopefully, you know, again it s a culture change in sports which is this is
the cause of death is still to be determined, but his family has already agreed to allow researchers at boston university to study his brain. those same researchers have already confirmed brain damage in dave duerson, a former pro financial star who committed suicide at the age of 50 last february. are these contact sports safe to play and should parents be more wary about allowing their children to get involved in such high-collision sports? dr. julian bales is chairman of the west virginia department of neurosurgery and he joins us now. good afternoon, sir. good afternoon, martin. nice to talk to you. dr. bales, you have been studying the brains of professional athletes at your medical center. is it your view that these sports are leading to serious brain damage? well, certainly it s concerning. we know it started with financial, but financial is not the only sport, absolutely not. hockey is another one.
former nfl player draws attention to the hard-hitting game of football. former chicago bears safety dave deweyson was found dead last tuesday. he shot himself in the chest after texting family members he wanted doctors to study his brain. he wanted them to see if he had a brain disease that leads to memory loss and blurry vision and severe depression. it is caused by repeated blows to the head. he didn t show it to me dreblgtly, but he did to our mother. symptoms about memory loss, blurred vision and slurred words. he did write it down and said that those things were his last words in the form of a letter. there is a growing discussion about the risk for football players, including young kids in pee-wee leagues. just last hour i talked with dr. julian bales, the chairman of west virginia s department of neurosurgery as well as mike
control. some of the symptoms can be so overwhelming. maybe stanley knows from his own experience, sleeping. all that stuff that s disturb and not enough to want to go back in. these 33 will have some problems, aren t they? i think they will for a while. they ll have to get used to it. they ve been in there a long time. it is going to be like coming back out into a new world. because working underground, it is a different world, you know? no one could understand it unless they were there. you go in. you come out every day. they ve been there since august. so they re going to have some readjusting to do. stanley, this is a lot of stanley stewart who survived that upper big branch mine that 29 miners were killed. mike roe of dirty jobs that returns to discovery on tuesday the 19th. will stay with us. dr. charlie sophie, dr. julian bails will return. we ll go back to the mines as well. don t go away.