Doctors from Boston University announced that Thomas was diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE, but his life and death were also complicated by seizures brought on by a 2019 car crash.
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Demaryius Thomas died in December at 33, mere months after retiring from a Pro-Bowl career in the NFL in which his charisma, humility and team-first ethos on the field made him a favorite of teammates and fans. Those closest to him said his behavior became increasingly erratic in the last year of his life, which was marked by the memory loss, paranoia and isolation that are hallmarks of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head hits.
On Tuesday, doctors from Boston University announced that Thomas was posthumously diagnosed with Stage 2 CTE, but his life and death were also complicated by seizures brought on by a 2019 car crash. They attacked with little or no warning and led Thomas to wreck other cars and fall down steps. The coroner’s office in Fulton County, Georgia, has not yet ruled on the cause of his death, but doctors in Boston said he most likely died after a seizure.
“He had two different conditions in parallel,” said Dr. Ann McKee, the neuropathologist who studied Thomas’ brain. She added that seizures were not generally associated with CTE.
Because of the dual conditions, Thomas’ CTE diagnosis does not bring the neat clarity that has punctuated other NFL players’ demises. His family, friends and former teammates will not know how much football is responsible for Thomas’ struggles and are only now coming to grips with the extent to which he suffered.
“It amazes me now when we talk about how a young man that age can be in so much pain but still smile,” said Carlos Jones, Thomas’ pastor who was with him when a seizure caused Thomas to fall down the steps in his home in early 2021. “It was just a testament of how strong he was.”