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The Catlin family has donated the 23-year-old’s brain to Veterans Affairs-Boston University-Concussion Legacy Foundation Brain Bank in an effort to determine how a concussion resulted in the mental and behavioral changes that they believe ultimately led to the athlete’s death,according toThe Washington Post.
The Bank confirmed the donation to PEOPLE, noting that it received the brain on Tuesday.
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A spokeswoman with the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner’s office said Kelly died from asphyxiation.
A competitive cyclist, Kelly rose to prominence as a member of the U.S. national team and raced for the Rally UHC Pro Cycling Team. She was pursuing a graduate degree in computational mathematics at Stanford at the time of her death.
“When I heard the news I was biking and my mom called me,” Christine recalled of the day her sister died. “We had been worried because [Kelly] hadn’t answered the phone in, like, a week. I was having a really sad feeling about that. When my mom called me I was hyperventilating and crying. I’ve been numb ever since.”
According to the family, Kelly’s mental health struggles began in December 2018 after she suffered a concussion during a cycling race. She began having vision problems, severe headaches and was unable to complete workouts with her team, Mark told PEOPLE.
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“My wife and I talked to her weekly on the phone and she started to express apathy about cycling, which she’d never done before,” Mark said. “She had a lack of enthusiasm for the Olympic team, for training, for everything in life. We were concerned. She ran herself down. The concussion had a profound impact on her. She had these mental issues and she started to feel trapped.”
Mark and Christine said they called Kelly constantly and her mental health seemed to have been improving. Now, the family is struggling to come to terms with Kelly’s death as they make funeral arrangements. Kelly — who is one of a set of triplets — leaves behind her sister and brother, Colin, and her parents, Mark, 66, and Carolyn Emory, 67.
“She had such a bright future. She was so multi-talented,” Mark said.
source: people.com
