Head Injury

Stunning, ominous injury news, yet again. As the Flyers were leaving the Xcel Energy Center last night for their charter flight to Dallas, a team spokesman hustled into the press room with a tape- recording of Mark Recchi speaking about his status. Recchi had been in the training room and unavailable for interviews after the Flyers' 3-3 tie with the expansion Minnesota Wild. Reporters had been wondering about a Recchi foot injury. "My foot's fine," said Recchi, who missed a day of practice after blocking a shot Saturday against Boston.

As if things weren't bad enough for the Flyers, right winger Mark Recchi missed last night's game with a headache after being hit on the head in Monday's game by 6-foot-9 Zdeno Chara. The Flyers are not calling it a concussion, yet. "He wanted to play and I said no," general manager Bob Clarke said. "You can't take a chance. He obviously has some level of head injury. We'll know more when we get him back to Philadelphia and evaluate him. " Recchi was injured during the first shift of the game when he stumbled into the taller Chara and caught the defenseman's elbow.

The New Jersey State Police have initiated a "fact-finding investigation" to determine the details surrounding the injuries a police recruit suffered Wednesday after a boxing match at the State Police Academy. A first sergeant on the academy's staff at Sea Girt began the investigation almost immediately after the recruit from the Washington Township Police Department in Gloucester County collapsed, according to Lt. Thomas Gallagher, a state police spokesman. The recruit, Patricia Quinn, 25, was on life-support systems last night at the Medical Center of Ocean County-Point Pleasant Division.

The identity of a man discovered in the basement of an abandoned building at 2018 W. Toronto Street in North Philadelphia Sunday afternoon remains unknown, according to police. Officers at South Division said the man's body was discovered around 1:50 p.m., Sunday, with blunt force trauma to the head. Although the case has not officially been ruled a homicide, detectives at the Homicide Division are investigating it. - Suzette Parmley  

Monroe Gist Jr., the municipal union official whose battered body was found in a sewage-treatment tank on Oct. 6, died of a blow to the head and drowning, according to state Medical Examiner Ali Z. Hameli. But neither Hameli nor local law enforcement authorities have said whether they believe that Gist died accidentally or, as his family and friends suspect, because he was about to publicly reveal corruption in his union, Local 320 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)

A Golden Gloves boxer who was knocked unconscious in the ring died of a head injury, according to autopsy results released yesterday. The death of 19-year-old Dylan Baker of Round Rock, Texas, was ruled an accident, said Frank Tovar, an investigator with the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office. Baker, a freshman at Southwestern University in Georgetown, was pronounced dead at 10 p.m. Saturday at University Hospital in San Antonio, a day after he was injured. Like all tournament participants, Baker was wearing protective head gear when he was hurt during the third and final round of the novice division middleweight championship Friday at the San Antonio Golden Gloves regional tournament.

Lawsuits filed by former NFL players over head injuries allegedly sustained while playing will be litigated in federal district court in Philadelphia, a U.S. judicial panel ruled Tuesday. The five-judge panel approved requests by the NFL and lawyers for the players to try three cases filed in federal district court in central California, and one in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. The panel said the cases all involve "common questions of fact" and that centralizing them here would be more convenient for the parties and witnesses and promote more efficient litigation.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, most of them children, and burning their bodies was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday. The name of the suspect, a married, 38-year-old father of two, has not been released. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta said that he may face capital charges and that the United States must resist pressure from Washington and Kabul to change course in Afghanistan because of anti-American outrage over the shooting.

A 17-year-old Kennedy-Kendrick High School student suffered a serious head injury yesterday afternoon at the hands of a fellow student, police said. The Norristown youth was flown to the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, where he was expected to be released last night. . He suffered seizures, police said. The alleged attacker faces a felony count of aggravated assault and related charges, and is scheduled to appear tomorrow before Common Pleas Court Judge Paul Tressler.

Joe Johnson scored 37 points, Josh Smith added 22 and the host Atlanta Hawks ended Utah's six-game winning streak with a 139-133 victory Sunday night in the NBA's first quadruple-overtime game since 1997. The four overtimes tied for the third-longest in NBA history. It was the ninth NBA game to go four OTs and the first since Phoenix beat Portland 140-139 on Nov. 14, 1997. Al Jefferson finished with 28 points and 17 rebounds, and Paul Millsap had 25 points and 13 boards for the Jazz before both players fouled out in the final overtime.

Mayor Nutter and his security detail were on the scene to help an injured motorist after an early-morning car crash Saturday on I-76 in Philadelphia, according to police radio reports and mayoral spokesman Mark McDonald. Nutter was in his police-driven SUV about 2:45 a.m., headed home to Wynnefield from City Hall, McDonald said, when a two-car accident happened behind them in the westbound lanes near Girard Avenue. The mayor's vehicle was not involved. The security detail pulled over, and the mayor called 911, McDonald said.

One of the 76ers' best wins of the season in a first-place showdown that included a milestone for coach Doug Collins was overshadowed by a second-quarter head injury to Boston Celtics guard Mickael Pietrus. Trailing by six points at halftime, the Sixers used a 37-17 third-quarter edge to defeat the Celtics, 99-86, Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center. The Sixers increased their Atlantic Division lead to a game and a half while giving Collins his 400th career win. The concern of both teams, however, centered on the status of Pietrus after he suffered an injury that forced him to be taken to an undisclosed hospital by ambulance.

Mayor Nutter and his security detail were on the scene to assist an injured motorist after an early morning car crash Saturday on I-76 in Philadelphia, according to police radio reports and the Mayor's spokesman Mark McDonald. The Mayor was travelling in his police driven SUV around 2:45 a.m., heading home to Wynnefield from City Hall, McDonald said, when a two-car accident occurred behind them in the westbound lane near Girard Avenue. The Mayor's vehicle was not involved in the accident.

WASHINGTON - Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales will be charged with 17 counts of murder, assault, and other offenses in the massacre of Afghan villagers as they slept, a U.S. official said Thursday. The charges against Bales, 38, include 17 counts of murder, six counts of attempted murder, and six counts of aggravated assault as well as dereliction of duty and other violations of military law, the official said on condition of anonymity because the charges had not been announced. Bales, who lives in Lake Tapps, Wash., will be charged with shootings in two villages near his Afghan post March 11, gunning down nine Afghan children and eight adults.

One of the 76ers' best wins of the season in a first-place showdown that included a milestone for coach Doug Collins was overshadowed by a second-quarter head injury to Boston Celtics guard Mickael Pietrus. Trailing by six points at halftime, the Sixers used a 37-17 third-quarter edge to defeat the Celtics, 99-86, Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center. The Sixers increased their Atlantic Division lead to a game and a half while giving Collins his 400th career win. The concern of both teams, however, centered on the status of Pietrus after he suffered an injury that forced him to be taken to an undisclosed hospital by ambulance.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians, most of them children, and burning their bodies was trained as a sniper and recently suffered a head injury in Iraq, U.S. officials said Monday. The name of the suspect, a married, 38-year-old father of two, has not been released. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta said that he may face capital charges and that the United States must resist pressure from Washington and Kabul to change course in Afghanistan because of anti-American outrage over the shooting.

The Bucks County District Attorney said Monday that he will seek the death penalty for a Bristol Township man charged with the torture and murder of an 18-month-year-old Bensalem girl. "This is a terrible, terrible tragedy," David Heckler said before the arraignment for Adrian Morgan Allen. "We contend this was an intentional killing, first-degree murder. " The child, called B.A. in court documents, died on March 7, 10 days after she was taken to St. Mary Medical Center unconscious with a severe head injury that required emergency surgery.

LONG BEACH, CALIF. - What began as an after-school fight between two young girls over a boy exploded into a homicide investigation yesterday, when authorities said a 10-year-old died of a head injury after the confrontation with an 11-year-old classmate. The finding rattled the already shaken school community at Willard Elementary, where student Joanna Ramos attended the fifth grade. She died Friday, about six hours after a brief fight with another girl in an alley near the school in a working-class neighborhood in the port city of Long Beach.

Lawsuits filed by former NFL players over head injuries allegedly sustained while playing will be litigated in federal district court in Philadelphia, a U.S. judicial panel ruled Tuesday. The five-judge panel approved requests by the NFL and lawyers for the players to try three cases filed in federal district court in central California, and one in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. The panel said the cases all involve "common questions of fact" and that centralizing them here would be more convenient for the parties and witnesses and promote more efficient litigation.