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| September 25, 2005 | Sunday | Sha'aban 20, 1426 |
Boxer’s death reignites debate
LONDON, Sept 24: American Leavander Johnson’s death on Thursday after brain surgery has reignited the debate over professional boxing two months after Mexican Martin Sanchez also died in a Las Vegas hospital.
Johnson, 35, had been in a critical condition since losing his International Boxing Federation lightweight title to Mexican Jesus Chavez in Las Vegas on Saturday night.
An editorial in The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington, after the fight said nearly 900 boxers had died as a result of injuries in the ring since 1920.
“It is time to halt that tabulation,” the newspaper said. “It is time to ban boxing, a sport in which death is the predictable outcome of athletic proficiency...it is surprising that more boxers don’t die.
“Even among prizefighters who walk away, the American Association of Neurological Surgeons estimates 15-40 percent of ex-boxers have some form of chronic brain injury and most professional fighters — whether they have apparent symptoms or not — have some degree of brain damage.”
World Boxing Council president Jose Sulaiman has promised an investigation into the death of Sanchez on July 2 the day after he was knocked out in the ninth round of a super-lightweight fight against Rustam Nugaev of Russia.
Sulaiman also pledged to improve safety conditions in Indonesia where he said five boxers had died in the past year.
Johnson, who absorbed at least two dozen unanswered punches to the head and body, collapsed in his dressing room after referee Tony Weeks stopped the fight in the 11th round.
He never regained consciousness after emergency brain surgery and doctors decided to remove him from a life support machine when his kidneys failed and his heart stopped beating.
“I don’t think there’s anyone to blame here other than the circumstances,” said promoter Lou DiBella. “He’s a victim of his own courage.”
Doctor William Smith, who performed the surgery at the University Medical Center, said boxers sustaining injuries similar to Johnson’s had less than a 25 percent chance of survival.
“He suffered a very severe injury,” Smith said. “The problem was that the injury was to the brain itself.
“In some cases the punishment is absorbed by the skull but in this young man’s case the brain itself absorbed the punishment.”
Margaret Goodman, chairwoman of the Nevada medical advisory board to the state boxing commission, said the tragedy would be examined urgently.
“The commission is going to sit down and look at everything again and again and again,” she said. “We really need to look at what can be done in the future.”
Goodman was the ringside physician on Saturday and entered the ring at the end of the 10th round to check Johnson’s condition. She said she saw no sign that he should not be allowed to continue.
“Something is wrong,” she said. “I don’t know what it is and I don’t know what needs to be changed but we need to re-evaluate the entire way we approach the testing and treatment of boxers. These kids trust their lives to us and we are failing them.”—Reuters
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