WOODLAND — Dr. Bennet Omalu compares the onslaught of a traumatic brain injury to a balloon floating inside a bottle — one that, when shaken, sends the balloon slamming against the bottle’s interior.
“That is what happens to your brain — it bounces around inside your skull,” said Omalu, a UC Davis Medical Center neuropathologist who evaluated the injuries to Cameron Morrison, the Davis toddler who allegedly suffered a fatal beating by Darnell Dorsey, his mother’s boyfriend, in January 2014.
Dr. Bennet Omalu is an associate clinical professor of pathology at UC Davis. Robert Durell, UC Davis/Courtesy photo
Omalu said Cameron’s symptoms — brain swelling and bleeding, retinal hemorrhaging and bruising to the inner scalp — were among a “constellation” of trauma patterns consistent with angular rotational acceleration-deceleration, a sudden movement of the head that rattles the brain, previously known as shaken-baby syndrome.
“It tells you it’s an adult-induced nonaccidental trauma in a child,” Omalu, an expert witness retained by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office, testified at Dorsey’s trial Monday in Yolo Superior Court.
The shaken-bottle scenario he described appeared in the movie “Concussion,” which chronicled Omalu’s discovery of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in professional football players and his subsequent battle with the NFL to recognize it as a disease.
Omalu’s testimony Monday largely backed that of Dr. Ikechi Ogan, the forensic pathologist who conducted Cameron’s autopsy and ruled that the 20-month-old boy died from inflicted blunt-force trauma.
Dorsey, 24, has pleaded not guilty to the fatal assault allegations. His attorneys contend that Cameron’s death stemmed from a severe case of pneumonia that sent him into respiratory distress cardiac arrest, triggering brain edema and other injuries that doctors misinterpreted as signs of child abuse.
The defense called to court its own medical experts who backed their claims, with pediatric forensic pathologist Dr. Janice Ophoven saying Cameron’s lung mucous tested positive for “abundant” staph bacteria when he first arrived at Sutter Davis Hospital.
But in Omalu’s view, Cameron didn’t suffer from pneumonia at all.
“What he had was chronic bronchitis bronchiolitis,” Omalu told Deputy District Attorney Michelle Serafin, describing the condition as an infection of the airways as opposed to the lung tissue. “It’s what you would see in a child that has had the flu or a cold. It doesn’t kill anybody.”
Radiologists from UCDMC, along with the hospital’s interim chairman of pediatrics, Dr. Kevin Coulter, also have testified that they saw no signs of pneumonia in Cameron.
Asked if family members would have recalled that Cameron was playing and eating normally the night he was hospitalized, Coulter said Tuesday, “not if there’s an impending arrest from pneumonia coming.”
Trauma described
Omalu said he noted contusions to Cameron’s lungs and back, “meaning he received blunt-force trauma to his trunk” that also fractured his ribs, lacerated his liver and ruptured the lining of his abdomen.
The hemorrhaging, or bleeding, to Cameron’s brain appeared more extensive on his right side than his left, which Omalu said he found significant in light of bruising to the boy’s right cheek and a detached retina in his right eye.
“It indicates that the right side received larger amounts of forces” from a blow to the face, Omalu told the jury.
He dismissed the defense’s contention that Cameron suffered from weakened bones that fractured when his mother and ambulance personnel administered CPR compressions on the unconscious boy.
Rather, Omalu said the multiple fractures in various stages of healing — coupled with bruising to his back — were indicative of compressive gripping injuries to Cameron’s torso.
“I did not see any evidence of metabolic disease of the bones,” said Omalu, who examined portions of the toddler’s ribs in addition to his brain, eyes, spinal column and other organs. He noted that other ribs were in various stages of healing “that you see classically in abusive injuries.”
Defense attorney Joseph Gocke challenged Omalu’s testimony by raising criticisms of his work, including references to a December 2015 Associated Press article in which colleagues accused him of failing to credit prior research in the area of CTE.
Omalu claimed the AP reporters were “hired and paid by the NFL,” which he said threatened his life and “tried to exterminate me professionally.”
“I find it funny when lawyers try to teach me how to do science,” Omalu said, adding that if he relied solely on past work, “there is no way for science to move forward. I’ve moved science forward.”
Now in its fifth week of witness testimony, Dorsey’s trial is expected to reach the closing argument stage sometime next week, after which the seven-man, five-woman jury will begin its deliberations.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene