MILWAUKEE — After Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa appeared to suffer another concussion in his young career Thursday night, and as former NFL players joined others in calling for him to retire to protect his physical and mental health, many people were left with questions about how dangerous concussions can be and what the road to recovery looks like for everyone from injured professional athletes to kids hurt on the playground.
"The injury itself is a mild injury but it's an injury to the most important part of your body," said Eric Lengas, a licensed athletic trainer for Bellin Health in Green Bay. "It's something as a sports medicine community that we take seriously and we treat relatively conservatively."
Lengas added that for someone like Tagovailoa, or the high school athletes or other patients he works with, multiple concussions can have an amplified impact on someone's suffering and potential recovery.
"It takes longer to recover and a lot of the time with subsequent injuries, they symptoms tend to be a little more severe," Lengas said. "That's a generalization but what we've learned as a sports medicine community over the years... but the caveat to that is that every injury is different and every person is different."
Watch the full interview above.