Crime & Safety

Doctor Notes Improvement in Bryan Stow's Condition

Stow was transferred to a Bay Area hospital after weeks in southern California following the beating.

Doctors have upgraded injured San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow's condition from critical to serious.

At a news conference at San Francisco General Hospital this morning, the hospital's head of neurosurgery Dr. Geoff Manley said Stow has been making progress and has been taken off another of his seizure medications.

"He looks better today than when I last spoke to you four weeks ago," Manley told reporters.

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Stow was critically injured when he was beaten outside Dodger Stadium in March after a Giants vs. Dodgers game. He was transferred to San Francisco General in May after receiving weeks of care at a hospital in Los Angeles.

Stow is still unconscious but has been responding intermittently to commands to open and close his eyes, and has some spontaneous left arm movement. He is also now breathing with a tracheostomy collar instead of a ventilator, Manley said.

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He is down to three anti-seizure medications -- he was previously taking five -- and the dosages of those have been reduced. He hasn't had any seizures recently, Manley said.

Manley said the anti-seizure medications had been masking Stow's true state, and that doctors at San Francisco General are now beginning to be able to assess his condition.

If his improvement continues, doctors will have to consider how to replace a piece of his skull that had been removed to allow his brain to swell after the beating.

Manley said it is difficult to predict how much, and at what pace, Stow will improve beyond his current state. He noted that patients who suffer brain injuries often make initial progress then plateau.

He said research on brain injury is limited, but that doctors know more now than they did a decade ago.

"With an injury like this, Bryan Stow would not have survived 10 years ago," he said.

Stow's family released a statement this morning saying, "We are grateful for the public's continued concern and support. We are encouraged by Bryan's improvement and we ask for continued respect for his privacy, and ours, to focus on his health."

Stow, a 42-year-old Santa Cruz father of two who worked as an emergency medical technician in Santa Clara County, was beaten by two people in the Dodger Stadium parking lot on March 31.

The primary suspect in Stow's beating, Giovanni Ramirez, 31, of Los Angeles, has not been charged with the assault but had his parole revoked Monday for an unrelated offense and will spend the next 10 months behind bars.

Reporting by Bay City News


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