Hospital Says Cichoke Had No Apparent Brain Injury

Santa Clara football player Dave Cichoke, who died of a brain hemorrhage 36 hours after playing in a weekend game at Cal State Northridge, showed no signs of a serious head injury during an hourlong examination at Northridge Hospital Medical Center immediately after the game, a hospital official said Thursday.

Spokeswoman Ann Bethel said Cichoke, 21, a sophomore linebacker who apparently sustained the head injury while making a game-saving tackle Saturday night against CSUN, was brought into the emergency room of the Northridge facility, a county-designated trauma center, at 10:47 p.m. Cichoke had been injured about 45 minutes earlier.

“He had been hit on the head during a football game and was complaining of a headache and nausea. The patient was examined for a possible concussion. He was alert, there was no dizziness and no ataxia,” said Bethel, referring to a condition marked by a loss of motor functions and muscle control.

“There were no visual changes, and he was observed in the hospital for an hour. He remained stable and alert and was released at 11:43 p.m. with printed instructions on after-care for possible head injuries.”

Bethel said a CAT scan of Cichoke’s brain was not performed because all signs indicated he had sustained only a mild concussion.

“There was no CAT scan because that procedure is performed only when physical indications call for it,” she said.

Earlier, Santa Clara team physician Dr. Jeffrey Saal said that a CAT scan would not have revealed any damage.

Cichoke spent most of Sunday with friends and walked to campus from his apartment Monday morning. His body was discovered in his apartment by teammates shortly after noon.

Dr. James Fox, an Encino-based expert on sports injuries, said Thursday he has treated more than a dozen of what appeared to be similar injuries among high school and college football players.

“I’ve treated maybe one possibly significant head injury a year since 1974,” he said. “Football players commonly get hit on the head and say they’ve had their bell rung or they have a buzz in their head or a slight headache. That is mild trauma to the brain surface, but a CAT scan is not a routine procedure for everybody that gets a bump on the head.”

The Northridge athletic department has turned down requests from seven Los Angeles and San Francisco-area television stations to release the game film showing Cichoke making the tackle that resulted in his injury. The decision came at the insistence of Santa Clara officials.

“We don’t want to get into a circus,” said Santa Clara sports information director Mike McNulty. “Our feeling is that we don’t want to get into a situation where it’s the Christians and the lions. It’s a simple matter of a very unfortunate situation occurring and we feel it’s best to let the thing rest. People don’t need to see the game film. The thought of showing it sickened me, and for obvious and tasteful reasons, we won’t release it.

“The coaches have seen it. One coach said it was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just a normal tackle. Dave got right up after the tackle and came to the sideline.”