Injured boxer’s case suggests inattention to safety

Reporting from Chicago — 

Rita Figueroa went all six rounds of her last fight before the bell rang and she headed to the locker room.

But the boxer had a dreadful headache, then nausea and vomiting. Figueroa, 40, couldn’t sign for her paycheck. Paramedics put her on a stretcher and prepared to put her in an ambulance.

Then, according to members of her corner team, University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion employees said the ambulance couldn’t leave. The next bout had started, and state law required an ambulance to stand by during matches.

Ultimately Figueroa was taken to the hospital and underwent emergency brain surgery for a broken blood vessel. The surgeon, Dr. Sepideh Amin-Hanjani, said the boxer probably avoided irreversible results by a matter of minutes.

“We got her before she slipped into a coma,” she said. “She would’ve progressed to the severe ultimate scenario of coma and obviously death shortly thereafter.”

The response to her injury, which ended the career of a popular champion in Chicago’s small boxing world, highlights sometimes lax attention to safety in a dangerous sport, the Chicago Tribune found. State law requires ringside doctors to examine boxers after bouts, but more than a dozen Chicago boxers and trainers said in interviews that it rarely happened.

“It’s not really a doctor that checks you after the fight. It’s really the paramedics,” said longtime Chicago boxer Germaine Sanders. “The doctor just sits along ringside.”

The doctor working Figueroa’s Nov. 6 fight, Eric Vaughn, initially told the Tribune he examined Figueroa in the ring after the bout and provided an ice pack. But a video showed no evidence of that. Vaughn then said he examined her in the locker room.

The trouble apparently began in the second round, when Figueroa was knocked to the canvas. She got up, but about 40 seconds later, she and her opponent accidentally slammed heads. The referee asked if they were OK, and the fight continued.

Figueroa said she felt something was off after that round, but didn’t tell her coach.

“I just felt like I wasn’t being able to take the punches,” she said. “I wasn’t as steady on my feet.”

Ron Lipton, a former boxer and referee who trains fighters in New York, watched a DVD of the bout at the Tribune’s request. He said the match should’ve been stopped and a doctor should’ve examined Figueroa because she was moving slowly and taking too many clean punches to the head.

“I pray she is OK,” Lipton said.

Figueroa finished the fight, losing by 1 point.

In the locker room, paramedics measured her vital signs, and her blood pressure was a little high, her team said. She told the paramedics she had a severe headache.

Her husband, Mike, and other team members were concerned.

When an inspector for the boxing commission sought Figueroa’s signature on her paycheck, she was too ill to sign. She began to vomit, a symptom of a concussion when it occurs with headache. Paramedics returned and put her on a stretcher.

Greg Znajda, a physical therapist on her team, said Figueroa had a dilated or “blown” pupil, which can indicate brain injury.

He called a friend who is a neurosurgeon, who in turn reached doctors at the University of Illinois Medical Center.

At some point after that, her team said, ringside physician Vaughn appeared briefly, examined her on the stretcher and confirmed she had a blown pupil. Then he returned to the ring.

“I was shocked,” Znajda said. “I went and said to the paramedics, ‘Where’s he going?’ ”

Vaughn said that when she showed symptoms of head trauma, he told paramedics to take her to the hospital.

Figueroa’s team sought to move her to the ambulance, but said pavilion employees wanted to wait for a second ambulance. “I got loud and said, ‘We’re going right now,’ ” Znajda said.

At the hospital, a CT scan showed a subdural hematoma -- bleeding in the brain. Surgeons opened her skull and saved her life.

Figueroa remains angry about what happened, and says she won’t box again. She requested a meeting with the boxing commission in early January, she said, but was still waiting.

“My team, I gotta tell you, my team is the reason I’m sitting here talking to you right now,” she said.

jahopkins@tribune.com