A Navy SEAL was convinced exposure to blasts damaged his brain, so he donated it to science to prove it
Before he ended his life, Ryan Larkin made his family promise to donate his brain to science.
Before he ended his life, Ryan Larkin made his family promise to donate his brain to science.
The 29-year-old Navy SEAL was convinced years of exposure to blasts had badly damaged his brain, despite doctors telling him otherwise. He had downloaded dozens of research papers on traumatic brain injury out of frustration that no one was taking him seriously, his father said.
“He knew,” Frank Larkin said. “I’ve grown to understand that he was out to prove that he was hurt, and he wasn’t crazy.”
In 2017, a postmortem study found that Ryan Larkin, a combat medic and instructor who taught SEALs how to breach buildings with explosives, had a pattern of brain scarring unique to service members who’ve endured repeated explosions.
A photo of Ryan Larkin in his parents’ home. Larkin was a decorated Navy SEAL who died by suicide after suffering from traumatic brain injury.Joshua McKerrow / The Baltimore Sun via APSeven years later, an Army reservist who carried out a high-profile mass shooting was also found to have brain damage, underscoring how much the research and technology needed to fully understand and treat traumatic brain injury is still lagging, experts and advocates said.
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