The despair that characterized Dave Mirra’s last days might have stemmed from doing what he truly enjoyed.
The BMX legend suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy before he committed suicide earlier this year, ESPN’s Alyssa Roenigk reported Tuesday, citing multiple doctors, including University of Toronto neuropathologist Dr. Lili-Naz Hazrati, who examined Mirra’s brain.
Mirra is believed to be the first high-profile action sports participant to be diagnosed with CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked with symptoms such as memory loss, depression and dementia.
Mirra suffered a number of concussions during his career, and Hazrati said the BMX rider’s brain resembled those of boxers, football players and hockey players, who have been diagnosed with CTE.
“I couldn’t tell the difference,” Hazrati said. “The trauma itself defines the disease, not how you got the trauma.”
“It’s assumed it is related to multiple concussions that happened years before,” she said.
Mirra’s wife, Lauren, told Roenigk that her late husband’s CTE symptoms worsened over the course of the final months of his life.
“He was always a really intense person,” Lauren Mirra said. “His intensity just started to increase. For sure last summer, I started to notice changes in his mood. And then it quickly started to get worse.
“The last couple months before he died were really intense, and then, of course, the last couple weeks were hard. We didn’t know what we were dealing with.
“He would repeat conversations and topics to the point where it was obvious to the person he was talking to but not to him. He would dwell on a subject and not want to move on from it.”
Mirra won a record 24 medals at the X Games, including 14 golds. He retired from BMX in 2011. He also starred on MTV’s “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” and served as the front man for two video games.
Mirra was 41 when he killed himself by gunshot on Feb. 4.
Thumbnail photo via Andrew Weber/USA TODAY Sports Images
