Nationally Qualified
Indianapolis Based
Attorney of Law

I am on your side and will fight to protect your rights.

The Indianapolis Star reported on the Brain injury Association of Indiana’s Annual Institute, in part, sponsored by Doehrman & Chamberlain. The institute features, in part, Ernie Irvan, a NASCAR legend, brain injury survivor and brain injury prevention advocate.

Ernie Irvan knows first-hand how a traumatic brain injury can disrupt a life and a career. He also knows many of them are preventable, which is the message the former NASCAR driver brought to Indianapolis on Wednesday as keynote speaker at the Brain Injury Association of Indiana annual conference.

Irvan, 48, suffered a life-threatening brain injury when he crashed at Michigan International Speedway in 1994. He defied the odds to return to racing but was forced to retire in 1999 after another hard hit in virtually the same place on the same racetrack. He has spent much of his time since trying to raise awareness about traumatic brain injuries, which each year afflict 1.5 million Americans and result in more than 50,000 deaths. He started the Race2Safety Foundation and speaks to a half-dozen groups a year. "I'm just trying to get the message out about prevention," Irvan said. "The numbers keep going up. Every 23 seconds in the U.S., someone suffers another traumatic brain injury."

Many of the victims are children, the result of falls from bicycles and skateboards.
"When I was growing up, I had a bicycle and never wore a helmet," Irvan said. "But kids need to wear a helmet and wear it properly." Dr. James Malec, director of research at the Rehabilitation Hospital of Indiana, said having someone of Irvan's stature and life experience spreading the word is invaluable. Even though traumatic brain injuries have received more attention the past few years with so many soldiers in the Iraq war suffering them, work still needs to be done.
"It's a relatively new field, only 20 to 30 years old," Malec said. "We can now target problems a lot more specifically, but we've got a long way to go. This still tends to be an overlooked injury because there are no obvious signs -- a big scar or a missing limb." Irvan said if the head-and-neck restraints and SAFER barriers mandated by NASCAR after Dale Earnhardt suffered fatal head injuries in a 2001 crash had been in place earlier, he would still be racing. But the winner of 15 Cup races doesn't begrudge having his career cut short.

"I don't feel cheated. That's just the cards I was dealt," he said. "When my name is mentioned, people realize who I am. So when I speak about prevention, they listen."