Excerpt from: USA Today (click for full article)
Like any sport, snowboarding and freeskiing come with risks and to the extent that is possible, athletes do their best to mitigate them. But with elite athletes suffering multiple concussions at a young age, more questions than answers remain about a culture perhaps nonchalant in its attitude toward concussions and the effects on their long-term health.
For Pearce, there are answers to those questions after struggling to accept the impact it has had on him. Following his accident, Pearce underwent years of rehab to relearn motor skills, improve his vision and memory, to function in everyday life.
Acceptance has not come easy, and with the benefit of hindsight, Pearce knows now that his accident might not have been as severe had he not taken that second run less than three weeks earlier.
"It's because my head was not healed and I shouldn't have been snowboarding again," he said. "That was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life was to take that next run. For the consequences and how dangerous it was, it's a joke that I even thought about doing that."
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