[ZucchiniFlower]

According to reports, Natasha Richardson may have suffered from "talk and die syndrome", a rare but critical result of minor head injury.

( Reports about her condition vary, but it's doubtful she'd fly with a swollen brain if there was still hope. We'll get official word tomorrow, but she's probably brain dead, according to various reports. )

The condition, though uncommon, can cause anyone with a bump to the head to rapidly deteriorate, thus the name “talk and die”.

....“What this implies is that someone hits their head and they are seemingly ok initially, but then they get a rapid collection of blood - usually called epidural hemorrhage - and that means bleeding between the skull and the brain.”

....Symptoms include sudden and severe headache, dizziness, and loss of balance, nausea, projectile vomiting and other neurologic symptoms.

http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/85/29...-syndrome.html

Very, very sad. Quick treatment is necessary. A CAT scan can find the hemorrhage. Don't ignore your symptoms.

More details about Natasha's accident and timeline here:

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/603508

[mrsD]

Natasha has passed away. It is a very tragic thing for her whole family!

Any fall or head injury should be treated with concern.

My husband's mother died this way, in the bathroom when he was 12 yrs old. It happens every day, and is tragic in every case!

Details are not available from her family, and it is a possibility that something in her head made her fall. But that is no less tragic!

[Koala77]

I agree Jo. Whatever the reason, the result is tragic.

The reason for her death is all conjecture for now because there are so many things that might have happened, and until the autopsy is completed, everyone will be wondering why.

She may have hit her head and had a cerebral haemorrhage, but the news items say there was nothing for her to hit her head on except snow.

Another option is that she could have had an aneurysm that burst, or a ruptured blood vessel for some other reason. If that happened, then it would explain why she fell in the first place, and the continuing bleeding being the reason for her death.

As I said..... so much is just conjecture for now.

[ZucchiniFlower]

The NYC medical examiner's office says Natasha Richardson died of blunt impact to the head.

A spokeswoman for the ME says the death has been ruled an accident. The cause of death is "epidural hematoma due to blunt impact to the head."

Dr. Wouter Schievink, a neurosurgeon at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.......
says that an epidural hematoma can be detected by a CT scan. But sometimes if the scan is performed early on, the injury might not be detected.

http://www.tmz.com/

MORE ON WHY SHE MAY HAVE DIED, FROM A NEUROLOGIST:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bonnie..._b_176665.html

[ZucchiniFlower]

A neurologist on Larry King explained how a helmet protects the brains:

"KING: Dr. Martin, you've got a helmet and the brain here, right?

MARTIN: Yes. Well, Larry, this is the problem -- sudden movement to a complete arrest of movement. That stops the movement of the skull and the head, but the brain continues moving and it collides with the inner surface of the skull, which is just as hard as the outer surface. You know, there's a huge difference between a fall on concrete and a fall into sand or soft -- soft ground. That's what a helmet provides you -- just that little bit of give to change that deceleration from a very sudden event to something that's softer.

KING: So what happens? MARTIN: So if the skull is in the head, then when there's an impact, the skull continues moving just a little bit. That's just enough to soften the blow, allow the brain also to slow down, along with the skull. And it prevents that collision between the brain and the skull that can be so damaging. It reduces the torque on the brain blood vessels."

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...19/lkl.01.html

Also:

"What does an emergency room physician do?

STORK: Well, the first thing we're going to do is stabilize the patient. But what could have been life-saving in this example is getting a head C.T. Scan as soon as possible. That will show any active bleeding in the brain.

And if there is bleeding in the brain, there are interventions that can occur. But the key is you have to do it quickly, because the skull is a rigid space. And if there's bleeding inside of that skull, as it expands, that pressure can cause the brain to essentially herniate. And once that happens, you have almost instant brain death.

And, Larry, the most important thing I want to emphasize to people is, if you have a loss of consciousness, you really should go to the emergency department -- continued confusion, any nausea and vomiting. And if anyone is sleepy or lethargic after an injury, you have to get seen.

If you bump your head and you've got a little bruise and everything else is A-OK, chances are within an hour or two hours everything is going to resolve and you're going to be just fine."

"KING: Was it -- was it caused by the fall? SPITZ: Well, it would have been -- certainly that when you have a fall and you have an impact to the side of the head, typically, the -- the temporal bone, which is on the side of the skull, is a very thin bone -- the thinnest bone of the skull. And that bone can fracture quite easily. And when you have a fracture, you can -- you can lacerate one of the -- one of the arteries that runs along the bone. And when you do that, that lacerated artery will allow the blood to accumulate in the epidural space. And that's why the classification as an epidural hematoma.

KING: So this could happen to someone crossing the street?

SPITZ: Well, you're going to have to have an impact to the head in order for this to occur. It's not always an impact to the head that you would notice as being -- as being very significant. And unfortunately, this is what happened here, is that an injury that didn't seem to be that -- that significant ended up being -- being life-threatening.

KING: Would a helmet have saved her?

SPITZ: Certainly, it would. Yes. A helmet in this situation would have limited the impact and certainly would have saved her life. Yes."