Concussions: the silent injury

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (WPRI) - Dylan Mello kept playing despite several brain injuries. He and his family didn't realize how bad it was, and they hope his story is a cautionary tale for young athletes everywhere.

Senior year was supposed to be his season. But instead of scoring goals for Portsmouth High's soccer team, Dylan Mello sat on the bench. Though he looked healthy, Dylan was hurt.

"It's something that I only feel and no-one can really see, so that's the most frustrating part about it," Mello said. "These past 14, 15 months have been the worst time of my life."

The 17-year-old suffered three concussions in the last year. The first came during a hockey game when the impact of a check resulted in what he described as whiplash.

"I just knew something was up, but I just continued to play," Mello said.

He continued to play until a soccer game months later, when an opposing player wearing a cast whacked him in the head. He was out of it that day, and woke up the next morning feeling fine. But then the migraines began.

"It was awful watching. He really suffered that summer from the cast hit. He couldn't read, he couldn't work, he slept all the time," said Donna Mello, Dylan's mother.

"I'd go to bed with a migraine and wake up with a migraine. The only thing that took my mind off of it was soccer," Dylan Mello said.

But another soccer injury, this time a ball to the head, knocked him out of the game.

"I actually had green dots on the side of my view," Mello said.

"After the third hit everything really started to unravel... he had heart palpitations, he had to wear a heart monitor. It got very intense," said Donna Mello.

Dylan has been off the field ever since. Mom, dad, and son each blame themselves for not getting proper treatment earlier. But concussions are hard for even a "cat scan" to detect, and can be especially harmful on a young brain.

"Their brain is not fully mature yet, so it takes a lot longer for their brain to recover from the effects of a concussion," said Dr. Neha Raukar, Emergency Medicine / Sports Medicine at Rhode Island and Miriam Hospitals.

And if an athlete goes back onto the field before they fully recover, the results can be deadly.

 "With your first concussion your brain swells. If you don’t let it recover, then with your second concussion there's no room for the swelling... and you can die," Raukar said.

Now that he's had time to rest, Dylan is improving and still plans to play college soccer. But he has a long road ahead.

Dylan hopes his story is a wake up call for other athletes. That's why he pushed for what's called ImPACT concussion screenings at Portsmouth High School. The online screening tests memory and reflexes.

If an athlete suffers a head injury, they'll take the test again and compare the scores to see if there's a difference. Dylan says it feels good to know he's helping others.