WhoDat!656

Former NFL offensive lineman Kyle Turley admits that he’s scared.

That’s why he takes medication he hopes staves off degenerative brain damage, and why he called a league-sponsored help line when he considered suicide.

Turley, in an in-depth story with Michael Gehlken of U-T San Diego, thinks both stem from a career in the NFL which included two diagnosed concussions but what he thinks are many more undiagnosed ones.

“I’ve got young kids,” Turley said. “It’s scary as hell. It keeps me up at night. It’s something that weighs on me heavily.”

Turley, who is one of more than 4,000 former players involved in a concussion lawsuit against the NFL, said he suffers bouts of vertigo and light sensitivity. He said his grandfather suffered from ALS, but that there was no other family history that involved brain disease, or pointed to suicidal thoughts.

“No one in my family has ever gone crazy and killed themselves or thought about that,” Turley said. “I have. It’s not a thought that is fleeting. It’s a thought that goes away when I’m on my medication, and the thought of doing a lot of crazy things as well and making unbelievable decisions.”

Turley has a 2-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, and he said he wants to do anything he can to make the game safer if his son wants to follow in his footsteps.

“I’ve got as good of a chance as anybody of going down that road into Crazy Land or into Super Crazy Disease Land,” Turley said. “I’ve got every opportunity to probably be in the same boat in the future, and I don’t know how far in the future. It’s very, very disturbing, very frustrating, very stressful to deal with, especially having kids.”

Those children were on his mind when he called the NFL Life Line, a 24-hour counseling hotline set up by the league after Junior Seau’s death last year.

“It was imperative that I did,” Turley said. “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just a moment where you’re lost. You’re completely gone. You don’t understand the things that you’re doing, you’re pissed at yourself because you’re doing the things that you’re doing, and you have little control, it seems, over it.

“Even in the moment, you’re saying, ‘Why is this happening? What is going on?’ But you’re still in it. It’s a weird thing. I don’t really know how to describe it. It’s frustrating to no end, and that frustration can lead you to some pretty low places. Only those who have gotten to the point where they picked up a phone can probably understand.”

He can’t help but think about Seau at such times, and the fact that the support system that stemmed from the former Chargers linebacker’s death might have saved his own life.

Kyle Turley admits suicidal thoughts, fears brain damage | ProFootballTalk

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."

vpheughan

I live near Indianapolis and when the Super Bowl was here Turley was too. He was going around with a guitar and singing to any radio station that would listen.

jeanpierre

I miss the big lug...

I pray and hope he can find help and comfort...

He was one of my All-Time favorite Saints...

foreverfan

I though he killed the dude the time he ripped some guys helmet off.

SmashMouth

... And a head banger too!

Crusader

...but he threw that helmet like a sissy.










I would not tell him that to his face

SaintnDE

not without an escape route!

TheOak

Preferably emergency helicopter basket... may as well call one before, your going to need it either way.

hagan714

dam i hope not. i loved to watch him play.

i guess anger mgm classes earlier in life might have helped

i still roflma when i think of that

Utah_Saint

Me too. I thought the guys head was still in it.