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Eugene Bareman spoke to the New Zealand Herald about traumatic brain injuries in combat sports
Eugene Bareman and Auckland’s City Kickboxing had a banner year in 2019. It was then that two of his students, Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski, lifted UFC gold for the first time in their careers. The gym’s other UFC fighters, Shane Young and Dan Hooker, also went undefeated in that period.
Hooker, who is riding a two-fight win streak with victories over Al Iaquinta and James Vick, will look to make it three wins in a row this weekend when he takes on Paul Felder in the main event of UFC on ESPN+ 26.
It hasn’t always been happy times at City Kickboxing, though. In 2012 Bareman experienced what is every coach and gym’s worst nightmare, the death of a fighter. William Rodriguez-Gomez was just 29-years-old when he died from a brain injury sustained during a pro boxing bout in Tahiti.
According to the New Zealand Herald Rodriguez-Gomez’s death almost lead to Bareman turning his back on combat sports altogether. The coach told the national newspaper that it’s not the only death he has witnessed around boxing and MMA.
”It is not a very common occurrence in the sport but it does happen and this kind of thing hits close to home for us at this gym anyway,” said Bareman.
Having experienced tragedy first-hand, Bareman has taken steps to improve fighter safety at his gym, especially in regards to the kind of injury that took Rodriguez-Gomez’s life.
City Kickboxing is one of a few gyms and professional sports franchises to carry an Infrascanner. The handheld device, developed by InfraScan, Inc., uses near-infrared technology to measure — in real-time — the flow of blood within the brain. Readings from an Infrascanner can diagnose a potentially fatal brain bleed. The equipment is a potential life-saver because brain bleeds are notoriously difficult to diagnose. The injury often does not include any visual or easy to notice symptoms, until it is too late.
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InfraScan, Inc.
Brain bleeds are caused by the shearing of blood vessels within the brain. They happen when the brain is subjected to violent motion within the skull. Oftentimes a bleed occurs when the brain collides with the inside of the skull.
When a bleed between various layers of the brain and the skull occurs there is nowhere for blood to go. Because of this the blood pools and forms a hematoma which, unless treated with emergency neurosurgery, continues to swell. Large hematomas are capable of putting enough pressure on the brain to force the organ into a fatal positional shift.
Brain bleeds are invisible injuries and fighters generally have no idea that there is a hematoma forming in their brain. Sometimes hematomas form slowly over hours, meaning fighters may finish their fights, return to the locker room or even go home before they realize something is wrong.
When a hematoma grows to an advanced stage a sufferer can experience headaches, confusion and loss of consciousness. Often, when those symptoms are present there is not enough time remaining to perform life-saving surgical intervention (like opening the skull to release pressure on the brain).
The Infrascanner was designed to eradicate these long periods of time between an injury being suffered and a patient receiving medical care. The device is intended to be used immediately and intermittently after a blow to the head.
The device, which costs around $12,000, has been purchased by a number of NFL teams. It is also in use at combat sport events hosted by the California State Athletic Commission. The Infrascanner has also been used at BAMMA and Bellator events in Ireland. The now-defunct fight team known as The Blackzilians also had an Infrascanner on site.
”In this gym we’ve been quite close to some brain trauma, so I’m very happy the technology is here in New Zealand,” said Bareman. “Like a lot of stuff to do with trauma to the body, there’s a golden time where you can pick it up. As it gets further and further away, it becomes more dangerous. Immediately after a fight is the best time to get scanned and pick up any potential injury and take care of it as fast as you can. With brain trauma, obviously the longer you leave it the more chance you might be in some trouble.
”It’s part and parcel with the sport, but you can’t accept it. You take as many preventative measures, teach your fighters how to defend properly, take whatever you can medically. As these pieces of technology become available and affordable, we just have to use them. We have to make it affordable. We need people to help us make it affordable. If it can save lives, then we need people who have it at their disposal to make these things cheap and subsidize them, we need them to help us as much as they can.”