A Loss for Words: Head Injury at SXSW Changes Lawyer's Life

22.02.12

Last March, Austin lawyer Patrick Fagerberg realized he'd lost the ability to use the only part of his body that really matters in the legal profession: his brain.

While attending the SXSW music festival in Austin, a large piece of camera equipment fell on Fagerberg's head during a concert. He was patched up at a local emergency room, he says, but two to three days later he began having trouble forming sentences and organizing his thoughts. The normally affable and quick-witted criminal-defense attorney noticed he was becoming more emotional and foul-tempered. Sometimes he couldn't even understand his friends' jokes.

And then there was his career. Fagerberg says Thomas, one of his eight siblings, called him last spring after the accident to ask why Patrick had not dealt with a routine matter in a case they were handling.

"My brother said, 'You've got to get back to work,' " Patrick recalls. "And I said . . . 'my brain isn't working right.' "

Source: Texas Lawyer