Baseball is America’s pastime, and Boston Red Sox fans are some of the most committed fans in Major League Baseball. When popular players take pitches and line drives into their heads, concerns over concussions and other brain injuries are immediate. While not everyone can have the chance to play professional baseball, all people have the potential to suffer brain injuries from common, everyday accidents.

Red Sox shortstop Stephen Drew recently suffered a concussion when he was struck in the head with a baseball during a training game. His recovery was lengthy and clearly shows just how careful a person suffering from a traumatic brain injury must be.

Concussions are a form of brain trauma and have more than 15 symptoms associated with their diagnoses. Ranging from dizziness to pain to amnesia, brain injuries may present a myriad of side effects that are different in different people. Proper diagnosis of a brain injury can takes days with recovery for injuries such as concussions lasting up to several months.

While Drew’s injury was directly related to his profession as an athlete, everyday people may suffer from similar brain injuries in car accidents and other situations. Tripping and falling may cause a serious injury to the brain, just as colliding with another vehicle may force a driver’s head to hit the car’s steering wheel or dashboard. It is true that a person may cause a self-inflicted concussion, though accidental brain injuries may also result from chance encounters with negligent strangers.

Individuals who have suffered concussions and other brain injuries as a result of other parties’ actions may be entitled to compensation for their losses. Though baseball players like Stephen Drew are able to utilize the MLB’s disabled list and medical testing to find out if they are healthy enough to return to active status, regular people also have the right to be made whole when others cause them to suffer brain injury-related damages.

Source: Redsox.com, “Concussion concerns come in many forms,” Gary Gillis, April 24, 2013