The White Light

THE WHITE LIGHT

The White Light you see when you die, and the white light you see when you get hit in the head, are not the same light. When you get your bell rung, the flash of white light and subsequent sparkles you see are called Phosphenes. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the phosphenes you see after a blow to the head are caused by significantly increased blood flow to the eyes, which then stimulates the photoreceptor cells and causes the lights to appear. The presence of phosphenes is the clearest and earliest indication that you have just suffered brain trauma, a concussion. Repeated concussions can, and often will, reduce even the greatest athletes ever to live into shells of themselves, like Muhammad Ali was at the end of his life. When the Champ died, he was riddled with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE, and he was intimately familiar with the White Light.

Cincinnati Cyclones defenseman Danny Narducci's last fight came on March 22nd, 2009 at the old Cincinnati Gardens, in front of a crowd of about 3,700 people, against the Manitoba Moose, in a game that meant nothing to either team in the standings. With 6:34 remaining in the first period with the score tied at 0-0, a rookie center for Manitoba carelessly crashed into the Cincinnati goaltender, injuring the goalie and prompting Narducci to challenge him, though the rookie wasn't exactly given much of a choice. Narducci, a veteran of 73 fights in professional hockey, was known for using his lack of height to his advantage by pulling down on the sweater of his opponents in order to close the distance his punches needed to cover. His uppercuts were equally famous and ferocious. The rookie was prepared and eager to square off with Narducci, who had no idea that the rookie had an entire playlist of Danny's most famous fights saved on YouTube, and watched them regularly. The rookie outweighed Narducci by 15 pounds and had a significant reach advantage, but it was his youth that saved him that evening in Cincinnati.

The two enforcers engaged each other, each latching onto the other man’s sweater with a grip strong enough to crush granite. The crowd rose to its feet and roared. Instantly the 3,652 fans in the Garden sounded like 21,000. Narducci shoved the rookie with both hands gripping the collar of his sweater in an attempt to get him leaning backward, and it worked. When Narducci then tried his patented pull-down, instead of pulling against it, the rookie rotated his hips into Narducci's pull and let his right hand fly, connecting cleanly under Danny's left eye *WHITE LIGHT* and sending his black Easton helmet flying from his head and against the boards near the bench while both teams leaned over them, each cheering their respective gladiator.

Staggered, but still holding onto the rookie, Narducci felt himself go immediately into survival mode. He had been clocked like this before, but he knew right away that something wasn't right when his vision didn't return after three or four seconds like it normally did. The familiar ringing in the ears was there, but the rookie now presented himself as a blurry mass of continuously falling fists. Out of a combination of shee luck and muscle memory, Narducci landed three lefts. He felt the rookie's nose shatter under the impact of the third, and the home crowd erupted into a frenzy at the sound and sight of the two men, still tangled in a mass of shoulder pads, elbow guards, and athletic tape, with fists spontaneously appearing to find their target. The linesmen let the warriors continue, despite Narducci having lost his helmet, which should have stopped the fight immediately according to the USA Hockey Official's Handbook. The IHL, USA Hockey, the media, the public, and the head coaches of both teams would go on to blame the officials for what happened after that.

Instead of stepping in and breaking up the fight after Narducci lost his helmet, the linesman both gave the clashing players more space. Almost instantly, both players connected simultaneously with devastating overhand rights *WHITE LIGHT*, buckling their knees and sending them both crashing to the ice, like their bones had vanished from within their skin. The rookie collapsed almost straight down, landing awkwardly with his left leg tucked underneath him and ultimately tearing his ACL, which nobody knew at the time. Narducci's legs buckled slower, and when he fell backwards, he did so in such a way that his lower body whipped his upper body, and thus his unprotected skull, careening towards the surface of the ice. *WHITE LIGHT*

The audible SNAP of Narducci's head impact sent the crowd from sounding like 21,000 to complete and total silence as team doctors rushed to both of the fallen, sprawled out onto the ice among a scattered yard sale of gloves, helmets and sticks. The rookie, weary and wounded, had helped himself up onto all fours by the time the team doctors reached him. He was confused when they ran right past time to tend to Narducci, who lay motionless on the ice. While the Manitoba trainer called for paramedics, the team doctor for the Cyclones, a neurologist by trade with over 20 years experience, took out his pen light and shined it into Narducci's eyes, looking for some kind of pupil response. When none was found, he leaned down near Narducci's face to check if he was breathing. The zamboni door crashing open and the paramedics scrambling across the ice with the gurney were the only sounds echoing off the walls of the Cincinnati Garden when the team doctor checked Danny's neck for a pulse, and began to frantically cut Narducci's jersey off. Once the medics saw this, they knew what was coming. The doctor somehow ripped off Danny's shoulder pads, and the moment the backboard was slid underneath Narducci's lifeless body, began chest compressions for CPR.

Seconds felt like hours while the silence suffocated everyone in the Garden. After a few rounds of compressions, the doctor instructed the medics to load Narducci onto the gurney. The rookie was still on his knees, but was now bowed forward with his forehead on the ice, his hands clasped behind his head, seemingly hiding from the unfolding incident. The two teams watched in frozen silence while Narducci was wheeled across the ice, through the zamboni doors, and into the tunnel, where the team of medics and the doctor continued CPR. The two teams had gathered around the scorer's table, and were now beyond a state of a concern. Some of the Cincinnati players were weeping with their heads down on the bench, the two coaching staffs conferred and exchanged theories as to the extent of Narducci's injury. The hush that had overtaken the crowd was growing uncomfortable, and nobody really knew how long the game had been stopped when longtime PA announcer Jimmy Willis made the following announcement.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Due to the on-ice incident, the remainder of tonight's game has been cancelled.”

The Cincinnati Inquirer Twitter account was the first to break the news, and they did so before the small and catatonic crowd had even filed out of the Garden's gates. Much like the PA announcer's statement inside, the headline was short, and gut wrenching. “Cyclone’s Defenseman Narucci Dies on the Ice of Subdural Hematoma.”