George Clooney was Suicidal After 2005 TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury)

George Clooney's family has long been supportive of those with TBI (traumatic brain injury). His Aunt Rosemary Clooney had a younger sister, Betty, who died of brain trauma caused by an aneurysm. Because of Betty's untimely death, the Clooney family in 1983 established the Betty Clooney Foundation to help those with traumatic brain injuries.

TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) Statistics

As David L. Goldin noted on his blog (www.headlaw.com), 1.4 million people annually are affected by TBI, of whom 50,000 die. Another 235,000 are hospitalized and 1.1 million are treated and released. There are 5.3 million Americans living with a disability as a result of a traumatic brain injury and it is the leading cause of death and disability in people under 45.

Clooney Suicidal After 2005 Brain Injury:

Ironically, it was George Clooney himself, in 2005, who experienced, firsthand, a traumatic brain injury that left him both depressed and suicidal. At the time, Clooney was filming the movie "Syriana" in Morocco (for which he ultimately won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar), playing out a scene where he is tied to a chair and tortured. Whether it was the whiplash movements of his head in the scene or the fact that the chair was accidentally knocked over and Clooney hit his head on the floor, shooting the scene caused a rip in George's dura, a disturbance in the sac of fluid surrounding his brain.

As Clooney told Flavia Bertolini of the "Sunday Mirror" on November 6, 2005: "I was scared. I thought I was having a stroke. My family has had a history of strokes. It was like an ice cream brain freeze 24 hours a day, but I understand what they were thinking: '˜Oh, he's an actor. He's just being dramatic.'"

The movie opened in Britain in January of 2006. Clooney made it to the premiere of his other film that year, "Oceans Eleven," in December, despite being in so much pain that he could hardly walk. As Clooney told "The Sunday Times" on November 6, 2005, "The problem was that I had put on weight in about a month to do the movie. Usually, I am in pretty good shape, but you should not put on 38 lbs. when you are 44. Before the surgery, I experienced the most unbearable pain I've ever been through, literally where you go, '˜Well, I'll have to kill myself at some point.' I can't live like this.'"

TBI Recovery:

It wasn't until Clooney flew to Los Angeles to see a neurologist specialist, who noticed that spinal fluid was seeping from his nose, that doctors undertook emergency surgery to pin his spine back together with plastic bolts and relieve the excruciatingly painful headaches he was experiencing.

During the entire experience, Clooney refused to take painkillers, saying, "We've had members of my family who've become very fond of them, over the years."

After the injury, the actor suffered short-term memory loss, wore a neck brace for a while, and had to begin "exercising" his brain by doing counting exercises and leaving post-it notes in order not to forget simple things -- and he was directing "Good Night, and Good Luck" at the time.

During the same year (2005), his 45-year-old brother-in-law died unexpectedly of a heart attack, his Grandmother broke a hip and died in the summer, he had recently broken up with Lisa Snowden, a British model (whom he had dated for approximately 5 years), and one of his two bulldogs (Bud and Lou, named after Abbott and Costello) was bitten by a rattlesnake and died. Clooney tried to fend off the rattlesnake with a branch and worried that his pet's last image of his master, (which the dog might well have misinterpreted), was of his beloved master striking him with a large branch, when, in reality, Clooney was trying to save the dog.

Of the year 2005, Clooney later said, "It was the worst year, personally, I've ever had.'

(Sources: www.wikipedia.com; www.contactmusic.com, "George Clooney Contemplated Suicide Over Brain Injury," Oct. 23, 2005; Sunday Mirror, "George Clooney Battles Brain Injury," by Flavia Bertolini, Nov. 6, 2005; The Sunday Times, "Clooney: Film Injury Made Me Suicidal," Oct.23, 2005; www.headlaw.com, David L. Golden; www.starpulse.com, "Brain Injury, Family Deaths Depress George Clooney," Oct. 24, 2005.)