Brain Injury

A Huntingdon Valley man was sentenced to 11 to 40 years in prison yesterday after pleading guilty to abducting five teenage girls and raping a woman in various incidents in Northeast Philadelphia. Christopher Toland, a former Widener University student, was arrested Jan. 30, shortly after the last abduction attempt. He was picked up at Comly Street and Harbison Avenue about 15 minutes after he tried to abduct a 13-year-old girl on Algard Street. The girl, like the other victims, fought her way free.

Sadness and another round of concern over head injuries in football followed reports of Junior Seau's suicide Wednesday. "Tough to hear the news about Junior Seau. One of the best LBs to play the game," Eagles linebacker Casey Matthews wrote on Twitter. "Had his throwback USC #55 jersey. 1 of the reasons I was 55. " Matthews grew up near USC and wore 55 in college. "Saddened to hear the news about Seau. Thoughts and prayers are with his family," Eagles linebacker DeMeco Ryans posted on Twitter.

It took six years, political pressure, and an online petition signed by 80,000 in a matter of days. But Thursday, Key Bank finally forgave the student loan for a Marlton student who died from a traumatic brain injury in 2006. "They said, ‘Effective immediately the remaining balance is forgiven,' " said Ryan Bryski, whose brother Christopher died after a fall. In a phone call Wednesday evening, an employee from Key Bank told the Bryskis, "We don't want to put you through any more undue hardship," Ryan said.

An attempted-homicide charge was filed against a 14-year-old Collingdale boy after borough police found him kicking a 13-year-old boy Sunday while two other youths looked on, police said. The victim, a student at Elwyn Institute, was identified as David Stahl, of the 700 block of Spruce Street, Collingdale. He was listed in serious condition yesterday in the intensive-care unit of Mercy Catholic Medical Center's Fitzgerald Mercy Division, a hospital spokeswoman said. Collingdale Police Officer Robert Adams gave the following account.

Two Temple University Hospital doctors testified before the Police Advisory Commission last night that a cut on Moises DeJesus' forehead three days before his death did not appear to be serious. The commission is hearing testimony at City Hall this week and next on the August 1994 death of DeJesus, 30, after he was subdued by police and taken to the hospital. Both Dr. Robert Ballard and Dr. Michael Grabowski testified that tests on DeJesus in the emergency room had not shown evidence of a serious brain injury or serious internal damage.

A mother who watched her small son being tortured for five years, without telling anyone, will spend the next 15 to 36 years in prison. That's the sentence Common Pleas Judge James D. McCrudden imposed yesterday on Judith Gladney, 29, formerly of Lindenwood Street near Kingsessing Avenue. Rodney Gladney was 10 when he died in a suspicious fire at the home in January 1985. Also killed in the blaze was the boy's brother, Ishmail, 4. Assistant District Attorney Cynthia Martelli said before Rodney's death he suffered from what experts called one of the worst child abuse cases they had ever seen.

Camden County judge Lee Solomon was recovering yesterday from a fractured skull and other injuries he suffered in a bicycle accident Sunday morning. The 55-year-old Superior Court judge is "progressing nicely, and he's going to need a lot of rest and rehab," said his wife, Dianne Solomon. "He's not going to be back in the courthouse any time soon. " Solomon, of Haddonfield, could be out of Cooper University Hospital's Intensive Care Unit as early as today, she said. Solomon has been a state judge for more than three years, after stints as a Camden County freeholder and prosecutor, a Republican assemblyman, and an assistant U.S. attorney.

DEAR ABBY: My two children were in a terrible car accident and were both airlifted to a children's hospital. My son was released two weeks later, but my daughter is still there, suffering from traumatic brain injury. Abby, I was driving the car. Why is she being punished and not me? — Anguished Mother DEAR ANGUISHED: You're asking a question that philosophers have pondered for centuries — why bad things happen to good people. In many cases the answer is simply "fate.

When the trainers got to Brian Westbrook as he lay supine and unconscious on the grass at FedEx Field with his teammates and opposing players standing hushed around him, Westbrook's arms were extended rigidly at his sides, locked in the grip of the event that had just leveled him. The presence of such a reaction indicated a severe medical emergency, one that can be caused by a stroke, brain hemorrhage, a tumor, or some other traumatic brain injury....

Henry Walter Isenberg, 88, a survivor of Hitler's pre-World War II Nazi Germany, died from a brain injury on Friday, Oct. 5, at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Isenberg immigrated to the United States in 1936 at age 12, leaving his family in their hometown, Magdeburg. He was one of the many Jewish children rescued before the start of World War II. In the United States, Mr. Isenberg was taken in by a foster family in Terre Haute, Ind., where he learned English and attended school.