You Get a Concussion. You Think You Know What to Do. You're Almost Certainly Wrong.

The first time Conor Gormally got a concussion, he felt as if he were standing on a ship at sea. A high school soccer player, he had decided to try out something new during his off-season: wrestling. His very first opponent caught him off guard, with a headbutt to the temple. "I stood up, then my horizon tilted to a 40-degree angle and I fell to the ground," Gormally told me years later. He felt the room tip and roll. "I was sobbing and saying, 'I don't know why I'm crying. I don't know what's happening here,' " Gormally recalled. After examining Gormally, the school athletic trainer told him to go home and rest. Gormally's primary care provider said the same thing, adding that he shouldn't return to school or practice until his symptoms resolved.