Tyrell Crosby reflects on mishandled spinal injury by Lions staff in wake of Tua Tagovailoa injuries

Former Detroit Lions offensive tackle Tyrell Crosby reflects on his misdiagnosed spinal injury in the wake of seeing Tua Tagovailoa’s injuries.

There have been several former NFL players and professional athletes who reflected on their own careers after seeing Tua Tagovailoa go down Thursday night with the disturbing symptoms indicative of a serious brain injury.

While there is still much to be understood about what happened to Tagovailoa, former Detroit Lions offensive tackle saw his own story when he saw Tagovailoa being injured for the second time this week.

Crosby, who played for the Lions from 2018 to 2021, explained why he took Tagovailoa’s injuries “personally” in a series of tweets explaining what he went through himself.

When a fan replied stating that the team is likely more concerned about money than player welfare, Crosby said that a Lions medical staff member reiterated that exact sentiment.

Crosby himself expressed this sentiment as well, resharing an article from earlier this summer in the Detroit Free Press about how his situation unfolded with the Lions.

On another Twitter thread, Crosby spoke about how he described his severe headaches to the interim head trainer for the Lions following an epidural shot. Crosby’s condition progressively worsened on a Saturday, and he was told by a member of Lions medical staff to wait until Monday to be evaluated by a physical trainer.

Crosby described having such an intense panic attack that he hyperventilated on the floor and passed out:

"“I felt so lonely and the headache and my entire body kept feeling worse and worse throughout the day and into the night. Where I genuinely was scared to fall asleep because I didn’t know if I would wake up. I cried all day and through that night terrified.”"

Eventually, Crosby cross-referenced his symptoms with WebMD and became concerned about a potential spinal fluid leak from his epidural shot. He reached out to the hospital to schedule a blood patch. According to Crosby, when the trainer found out about all this a few days later, he was “baffled” that Crosby was in “torturous misery.”

Tyrell Crosby opens up about how experience with Lions medical staff makes him take Tua Tagovailoa injuries ‘personally’

Crosby went on to commend former Lions head athletic trainer Dave Granito for putting player health first, although Crosby believes this is the reason the Lions parted ways with Granito last August.

In speaking with the Detroit Free Press, Crosby stated that general manager Brad Holmes and head coach Dan Campbell told him that he was “bad for the team” because he sat out of OTAs in 2021 due to injury. Additionally, Crosby said that Holmes “sarcastically thanked” him later for “playing through an injury that I thought I had” when the team waived him, per SI.

In a league that has used “race-norming” to deny the concussion claims of Black NFL retirees, and in a healthcare landscape where Black patients are “systemically under-treated for pain,” Crosby’s account paints a disturbing picture of professional athletes not being believed when their health may be at serious risk.