Hit by a car 26 years ago and suffering a traumatic brain injury didn’t stop Martin Kerrigan. He tells Nestor about his amazing journey and participation in the Scarecrow Classic 5K for the Brain Injury Association of Maryland October 20 in Sykesville.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
brain injury association, maryland, brain injury, years, orioles, concussions, great, people, call, martin, october, baltimore, nestor, walk, run, injury, luke, football, day, scarecrow
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Martin Kerrigan
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
8
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, Towson, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively into a really, really busy time of the year here with the Ravens playing important games and the oral sort of hanging on and making their thing happen. Luke will be an owing smells. Luke will be down at the ballpark. We will have Raven scratch offs to give away on the Maryland crab cake tour on October the 11th, celebrating both of our birthdays at Pizza John’s in Essex. That’s Luke’s favorite, my favorite. We will have, we’ll have a crab cake there as well. They have a delicious crab cake at Pizza John’s because they’re in Essex. Also our friends at the Liberty pure solutions put us out on the road. And our amazing 26 years of doing this every single day for 26 years at Baltimore positive we’re gonna have 26 oysters to and we’re gonna change our logo to the 26 by the time this gets out on the radio in early October, you’ll hear that I have a lot of cool guests around here. We call them wise conversations with our friends at wise markets, and I’ve had other guests on from the Brain Injury Association of Maryland and B, I am D, and you know, we talk so much about concussions in sports. And you know, whether it’s baseball, football, soccer, anywhere in sports, we see them their brain injuries. And I guess we think about that in a sports vernacular. But when I talk to really educated people about this, doctors who work on concussions, this is 99% of people just falling and having some really tragic, horrible middle of the day. Can’t believe it, not slipping on ice or anything like that, showers all sorts of ways. And there’s nothing better than bringing on someone who’s celebrating surviving something like this. And Martin Kerrigan is our guest. He is a now a 26 year brain injury survivor. He is here on behalf of the Brain Injury Association of Maryland, and they do this scarecrow classic every year. All these great groups trying to do good things. And I try to shine a little bit of light. Marty’s a teacher down in montgomery county schools, and a father of three children as well. And I’m going to let him tell the story, because right before I brought you on, and I don’t know you at all, and I’m staring at you, and you’re in a school because you’re a teacher, and you said to me, it’s been 26 years today. And I’m like, well, wow. I mean, why are you here with me? Why is this your celebration? Martin, well,
Martin Kerrigan 02:19
thanks, Nestor, so you know, as you stated, 26 years ago today, I was a student at the University of Maryland. I just transferred. There was a Friday night. I was walking across the route. One got hit by a car and suffered a devastating, severe traumatic brain injury. Was immediately taken to the hospital. Wasn’t given much likelihood to survive the night, but I did, and you know, over the next, you know, year, with a lot of intense therapy and access to great care, I was able to make in really what is, in hindsight, industry, truly remarkable recovery to the to the point where I was back in college full time following fall as a student, this time, I transferred to Towson University. So go Tigers. And, you know, it was just, you know, when I was in it, I didn’t feel like it was moving that quick or that remarkable, but in hindsight, and especially from what I have learned and what I’ve seen from others, it really was, and most people do not end up with this fortune of an outcome that I’ve had.
Nestor Aparicio 03:30
You know, my friend, Nicole roofing, Bill Cole, 10 years ago, 11 years ago now, most 11 and a half years ago, my wife was diagnosed with leukemia. She’s two time survivor. It was horrible. I was on the radio for all of it. I was at her bedside, surviving bone marrow transplant system, all of it, what I saw in medicine and in care and in science, and I mean stuff that during the plague blew my mind. People not listening to doctors because they’re jackasses. But I’m thinking 26 years where I was, was starting this radio station, 26 years ago, literally, 1998 this time of year. You said it was September, 25 third week of the football season. I’ll tell you. Jim Harbaugh was the quarterback of the Ravens then. And you know, we were moving into a new stadium. I mean, I think about where I was in my life during that month, that period of time when, I mean, I remember Maryland was playing football, yeah, you’re down on that campus. I’m sure it happened very near to there. To think about how far medicines come and how far we’ve what we knew about football concussions in 9019 98 and how we treated them. Hey, be tough. Go back in there, versus what you were going through on a scientific level, and where we’ve come 26 years later that, God forbid, if that happened to you today, I would think that things like the Brain Institute, Association of Maryland brain injury, excuse me. B, I am. D, it’s organizations like this and people like you that have made. Better for people if they have a brain injury now. So
Martin Kerrigan 05:03
to an extent, you’re right, Nestor and we really have made some significant medical advances, especially in the last 25 years. You know, you know, traumatic brain injury has been not only the recognition through the Concussion Awareness, but also, actually a lot of the increased awareness through on the conflicts in the in the Middle East over the last 20 plus years, you know, has brought a lot of shined a lot of light, brought a lot of attention to it. However, even still, that’s not the majority of brain injuries, you know. And unfortunately, majority of brain injuries oftentimes go undiagnosed or mistreated, um or sorry, misdiagnosed or untreated.
8Nestor Aparicio 05:42
Oh, you hit your head. You don’t tell anybody, right,
Martin Kerrigan 05:45
right, right, or you don’t even recognize it. Or you hit your head years ago, and then all of a sudden, it takes a long time for the symptoms, or it manifests itself, or you don’t connect the dots between difficulties and challenges you’re having in life to You know, my my gridiron glory in high school, 25 years ago, where, you know, I don’t remember the end of half of my games that I was in, you know, or the fist fights, or, you know, the repeated head trauma, you know, whatever the case may be. And one of the things that we really try to advocate for is, you know, screening, screening, screening. You know, that’s
Nestor Aparicio 06:20
called a baseline, right? Let’s see where you are right now and make sure we’re not dropping Correct. I
Martin Kerrigan 06:27
8yeah, I mean, and we’re also to, like, tonight, that’s okay. Who, you know, where’s that some point in my life, like, where, where did these difficulties start happening? And was there anything else that occurred at that point in time that makes me realize, oh, you know, maybe I’m not just a screw up. Maybe there’s something else going on. Maybe there really is a history of, you know, traumatic brain injury or or something else going on that is leading me to have these difficulties in my life. Now,
Nestor Aparicio 06:54
Martin Kerrigan, you prefer Martin or Marty. I
Martin Kerrigan 06:57
want to get it right, whatever, whatever you prefer. All right. Mark
Nestor Aparicio 07:00
Kerrigan is a 26 year brain injury survivor. He is here representing the Brain Injury Injury Association of Maryland. I’ve had them on many, many times. We talk football, we talk concussions and all of that. You’re a school teacher. What do you teach?
8Martin Kerrigan 07:14
So I’m a special educator, and I’m now teaching at the high school level. I’m a transition teacher, so I help kids plan for what life is going to look like after high school, and try to set up, set them up with different resources and services that may be available to them.
Nestor Aparicio 07:28
Well, they’re doing the Scarecrow classic. And you know, every year you try to do different things. This is, this is a one mile walk and a classic 5k it’s going to be held on Sunday, October 20. So let me just look at the Orioles schedule see what ALCS game they’ll be. They’ll clinch already being a World Series, but it’s in Sykesville, and I can send you out to the website to learn about all this. I want to give a link out on our website as well. Tell me about your work with the Brain Injury Association of Maryland, and you’re here on behalf of them, but I think on behalf a lot of advocates, you seem like a great spokesperson. Great spokesperson with a hell of a story to tell. It’s inspirational, just for me and knowing you for 10 minutes, but helping other people and having a community come together. I learned this with my wife’s cancer and leukemia and survival, and we work with the group called there goes my hero, and swabbing people and doing all that, but the advocacy because someone in this listening audience is going to suffer some sort of rain injury at some point, falling in the shower, falling on ice, hitting the head, something’s going to happen, our car accidents, all of these different ways. And it’s groups like this that put fundraisers together, put awareness together, and bring people like you out in front what is the Scarecrow classic 5k so, because I run, you know, I’m running to the beard refrigerate, getting all the beer for the fifth inning this month I’m doing, I
Martin Kerrigan 08:47
completely understood. So I will tell you this the Scarecrow classic. It’s our it’s our 5k It’s our big event. And I say ours on behalf of the brain Judy association of Maryland. And, you know, we also consider kind of like our outreach educational fair, too. And for the past several years, we’ve actually held it, and now I believe it’s third location. It’s in in Sykesville. Like you said, it’s more of like a cross country course, but you don’t have to be an expert runner. It’s nice, gentle, it’s very pretty. It’s very scenic. Some gorgeous tales brails, beautiful views of the lake. It’s, it’s a beautiful
Nestor Aparicio 09:24
8you call it Carroll County,
Martin Kerrigan 09:26
as I like this wonderful, wonderful Sykesville, yes. And here’s the best part, even if you know you got ravens tickets and and and tickets to the O’s Home World Series game that day, it’s in the morning. You got plenty of time to go run your race, hang out for a little while, go home, shower and get to the parking lot. Time to start tailgating.
Nestor Aparicio 09:48
Piney Run Park 30 March Road in Sykesville, you know, beautiful Carroll County. The 2024 scarecrow classic 5k and one mile walk is going to be held on October 20. It’s in person and. For the Brain Injury Association of Maryland, that’s B, I am D, they’re gonna rally survivors like my man Martin here, families, friends, supporters around the common goal of raising awareness about brain injury within the community and providing much needed funding support the programs. You come out, you can run, you can walk, you can chill out, you can enjoy beautiful Carroll County. Race Day check in starts at eight o’clock. The race starts at nine, and the one miler starts at 910, and you can walk that nice day for a walk, third Saturday of October, right right after my birthday. That’d be nice, Martin,
Martin Kerrigan 10:33
this is a great way for you to celebrate your birthday. Nestor Aparicio,
8Nestor Aparicio 10:36
56 years. Don’t make me walk 56 miles on behalf of everyone else would, and you’re not a doctor, you’re not gonna play one on the radio. But what advice would you give to people if they fall hit their head? Think something their spouse. I mean, this is something that I just want to impress upon people. The seriousness of it is to make sure you get checked out. Right,
Martin Kerrigan 10:58
right? So that’s a great question. So absolutely. And you know, I’ll say the slogan that I like to say in the Brain Injury Association of America. Used to use a slogan all the time, and I still find myself saying it on a regular basis. No brain injury is too mild to ignore or too severe to lose hope, so, you know. And what that means to me is, you know, even if you think that’s not, wasn’t that big of a deal, get it checked out, follow it. But also, on the flip side, if, if your loved one, or yourself has had a very severe brain injury, you know, there, it’s not a death sentence, and you can always make improvements. You know, there, there’s never a ceiling, right? You can always improve. You can always get better. You can always do things, especially if you, you know, like you, like you pointed out, which is so important have access to the right medical teams, right treatment. You know, this is where the brain re Association realm is great. They’re like our clearinghouse. So, you know, you call them and they and they’ll refer you to what is appropriate for you, depending on your trusted resource, right? Yeah. And they refer you depending on, you know, where you live, what your resources are, you know, your insurance, you know, all those different things. They can refer you to whatever you may need. We are a small but mighty force, you know. And I like to say that the brain injury community is, you know, we work hard, and you have a lot of really good heroes in this, in this world, and
Nestor Aparicio 12:27
you’re going to see a lot of people you know, on the on the 20th, right? I mean, you say that community comes together. This is your little Super Bowl, right?
Martin Kerrigan 12:33
8Yeah, I hope so. So, you know, and the more people we can get out there, the better. I really encourage it, even if you have nothing to do with brain injury. You don’t think you know anybody for injury. You’re wrong, because you do. We all do still show up. It’s a great time and again. Like I said, it’s a it’s a fun course, it’s challenging, but it’s not too difficult where you need to be a great expert runner. We have all levels of runners who will be competing there. I, you know, I got a couple friends who I ran track and cross country with in college who will be running there. But I also know people who, you know, don’t run at all, who still show up and participate. So it’s a great, great opportunity, great fundraiser, you know, can’t, can’t speak highly enough of it. 5k
Nestor Aparicio 13:16
that’s 3.1 miles or one mile walk, which is easier. Or you can, just like, mail in your $38.10 and go virtual. You can do that too. We’re gonna sign send everybody out to the brain injury Institute of Maryland’s web page, their sign up page out at the run sign up and you can get involved. Piney Run Park, it is on the 20th I always love I have a guest like you. So you mean, you started to talk some ish about Towson and go Tigers, and you’re giving me all that. I mean, are you Orioles or nationals? Are you commanders and Ray? Where are you?
Martin Kerrigan 13:46
So, all right, so I, you know, don’t hate me for this. I know where you’re going with this. I was born and raised in New Jersey, that’s all right, but so I’m, you know, I’m a Mets and a Giants fan, okay, well,
Nestor Aparicio 13:57
you’re suffering for some part, maybe the max, I don’t know, maybe, yeah, well,
8Martin Kerrigan 14:01
you know, so I’ll say the Orioles are my national or my American League team. I’ll take that. The only time I’ll root against the Orioles is if the Mets are playing them. And for football, you know that that Super Bowl lost over 20 years ago still stings. You know, Tiki
Nestor Aparicio 14:16
Barber called the Game Two weeks ago, and every time I see him, I wave the ring at him, you know what? I mean, a tiki so I still have that going on for him. And stray hand all those guys from back in the day, poor Jim fossil, my dear friend, the late, great Jim fossil. So, yeah, you got an Ernie a corsi. I mean, Baltimore is very, I mean, Ernie is my, my dude, so I can’t hate, listen, the Giants ravens thing. It happened to 58 it happened, you know, it’s, we’re still it’s probably not going to happen again. I ain’t worried about that. I’m worried about beating the bills. I’m worried about the Bengals next week and all of that. Martin Kerrigan is here, and I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Your football team stinks. So baseball team, maybe we’ll see. You know, maybe we’ll see. We thought we had a good football team. We thought we had a good baseball team here. Do. Next couple of weeks will tell us whether you have a good baseball team or not, and certainly the football thing’s going on. Luke’s going to be out in Owings Mills, from Owings Mills to Camden Yards. I don’t know where Luke’s going to be on the 20th of October, but probably chasing the Orioles somewhere here this month. All of our stuff brought to you by friends at the Maryland lottery. I will be out doing the crab cake tour on october 11. That’s Friday. Luke’s birthday is is the second Mine’s the 14th. We’re going to meet on the 11th at Pizza John’s in Essex, hopefully we’re previewing the American League Championship Series after a sweep of the New York Yankees behind Dean Kramer going seven strong and four hits. Let me dream a little bit. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, D. Am 1570 tau. So Baltimore, lots of sports ahead. Lots of Baltimore positive ahead. Stay with us. You.
