I remember that- didn’t he play for Washington? I remember an interview he did soon after when they showed him an the video of what happened he broke down hysterically and cried.
I had an incident (had a guy on a bike run into my car) that made me constantly see a video in my brain for about four months before it tailed off.
And I wasn’t even hurt.
But when my mind wasn’t occupied doing something (and even occasionally, when it was) that little video clip would just appear in front of my eyes, unbidden.
Super slow motion. Ultra-high resolution. Bright, vivid color. I could see the guy cartwheeling through the air, his bare calves, his black hole of a mouth, and his bike, cartwheeling in unison with him.
I would close my eyes, blink, and it would go away, but as soon as I stopped thinking about making it go away, it would begin playing again.
So when I read that quote by Clint Malarchuk saying he couldn’t shut off his mind, I felt like I knew what he meant.
And I think of our military personnel over the years who went through far worse, saw worse, and were often horribly maimed and what they went through, and I think now of that and see it all in quite a different light.
I simply cannot imagine how horrible that must be to have experienced what they did, but to see it again and again, not just in sleep, but awake. I didn’t quite understand before it happened to me just how possible that was.
He played for Buffalo at the time, but...I do believe he ended up playing for Washington later in his career. Just damn.