Wide Ramifications Seen for Brain Damage Found in Maine Gunman

Shredded connections deep in the brain. Battered and scarred blood vessels that are no longer able to support neurons. Clumps of dead cell debris marking a long pattern of injury.

The results of the autopsy of Robert R. Card II, the Army Reservist who killed 18 people, then himself, in the deadliest shooting in Maine’s history, left little question that his brain was profoundly damaged. But the finding raises other questions that have broad implications for the military and for the nation’s millions of veterans.

Mr. Card was a grenade range instructor who never deployed to combat. He is not known to have ever hit his head in a serious car crash, he never played football, and he does not appear to have had any other accidents that might account for the damage to his brain.

His only exposure came from routine training blasts on the training range — at a level that is supposed to be safe.

Source: www.nytimes.com