A US diplomat who suffered a mysterious brain injury in China — and believes it was a microwave attack by a foreign government — has pledged to donate his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation.
Mark Lenzi, now 44, was working as a security engineer in China in 2017 when he and his wife began hearing strange noises above their son’s crib inside their Guangzhou apartment, he told CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
The couple soon began experiencing headaches, memory loss, trouble sleeping and other symptoms associated with concussions. Their children woke up with nosebleeds.
Lenzi initially attributed the ailments to smog, before learning his next-door neighbor and another consulate employee living nearby were evacuated after hearing the noises and coming down with similar symptoms.
Lenzi believed his symptoms were akin to those suffered by diplomats evacuated from Cuba after becoming ill in 2016.
“There is no shadow of a doubt in my mind that this was a directed attack against my neighbor and I,” he told “60 Minutes.”
A State Department study later found that 14 of the 15 diplomats in China did not have the same condition as those in Cuba.
A year after returning from China, it’s still unclear what happened to Lenzi.
His headaches became so severe, he was referred to Dr. Teena Shetty, the neurologist for the New York Giants and director of the concussion program at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, the Boston Globe reported.
“I have not seen a case like this before. It’s very unusual,” Shetty told the paper, adding Lenzi “exhibited a constellation of symptoms which were consistent with those typically seen in mild traumatic brain injury, but notably without any history of head trauma.”
Lenzi, who now works at a US State Department office in New Hampshire, signed a pledge Friday to donate his brain to the CTE Center at Boston University. He joins thousands of other brain-injury patients, including former NFL players.
“The engineer in me wants to get to the bottom of this type of concussion and exactly what happened to me,” Lenzi said at the pledge-signing in Boston.
With Post wires
Source: Read Full Article