Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 93, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1914 — Old Football Injury Leads to Suicide. [ARTICLE]

Old Football Injury Leads to Suicide.

Crawfordsville, Ind., February 14 —An old Injury to his head which was suffered during the football game wtich Wabash college played at Washington park in Indianapolis, in ISOB, with the University of Michigan, was primarily the cause of the state of mind that led Hugh R. Sutherland, former Wabash college football star and captain of the team that played Michigan, to commit suicide recently in the state of Washington, where he had a responsible position as manager of a large lumber camp. The physician who was called after the finding of Sutherland’s body in the woods, stated that he found a depression in Sutherland’s skull, the result of some injury, which the doctor stated would have been sufficient to cause an unnatural pressure on the brain and result in attacks of mental aberration. Sutherland had frequently for many weeks previous to his suicide, complained of pains in his head. The malady with which he was suffering caused him to exaggerate his business worries. However, there was no reason for his becoming despondent as his prospects were exceedingly bright, he was earning a good salary and had but a short time before assumed entire charge of the Dempsey camp, one of the largest in northern Washington, with the responsibility of almost a million dollars worth of timber and lumber squipment. According to Jack Hargrave, a classmate of Sutherland, at Wabash, and at present employed in Portland, Ore., Sutherland enjoyed the implicit confidence of his employers and no trouble had occurred. Hargrave played quarterback on the football team which Sutherland captained and. which played Michigan, and he writes friends here that he distinctly remembers a severe blow on the badk'of the head which Sutherland suffered in that game. Many times afterward Sutherland felt pain in the place where he was injured. That this brought on insanity and insanity led to suicide is the belief of Hargrave, who has made an investigation of the cause of the suicide.