By Sam Gregory: This Saturday marked the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. Louisville, Kentucky is best known for the first and most prestigious jewel in the triple crown of horse racing. People are dressed in silk and gold on Kentucky Derby day and mint juleps flow like the soft wind that blows through the freshly budded willow trees over the rolling hills of the bluegrass state on a beautiful spring day.
It almost doesn’t seem possible in a land with such a pristine backdrop for another sport to play host to such a heinous tragedy in a man’s life in the same city of Louisville. But that’s what happened to a boxer by the name of Greg Page who was born in the beautiful bluegrass state of Kentucky 51 years ago and tragically his life ended early due to a travesty that happened in the ring just over eight years ago.
On March 9th, 2001 Greg Page was left physically paralyzed and living on welfare after a serious ring injury that many people believe could have been prevented; if only the Kentucky Boxing Commission had exercised a little competence, followed its own rules, or just simply owned up to what went wrong on that tragic night.
Greg Page was stopped in 10 rounds in a heavyweight bout by Dale Crowe on March 9th, 2001 at a nightclub boxing ring in Erlanger, Kentucky, lapsed into a coma, after arriving at the hospital, after what authorities call “an unusually cruel length of time to get medical attention.”
After leaving the hospital, Page suffered from paralysis on his left side and was wheelchair bound. Shortly after the incident happened an investigation took place that discovered among other things that “the commission invites tragedy on a regular basis by not requiring an ambulance for each fight”; which explains the delay in getting to the hospital.
Mandatory safety components at all events were clearly outlined in the commission’s rules for boxing contests which stated: “A clean stretcher and a clean blanket, placed under or adjacent to the ring throughout each program, and first aid oxygen apparatus or equipment.”
According to reports following the investigation there was no stretcher available nor was there any oxygen apparatus or equipment available anywhere near the ring at the time of the boxing match.
The fact of the matter is the Page-Crowe fight should have never taken place. The commission should have never allowed the fight to begin without the oxygen on hand. But the oxygen issue is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to rules that were ignored. The Kentucky Boxing Commission violated at least three paragraphs out of Section Five of the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996.
Section Five Safety Standards: No person may arrange, promote, organize, produce, or fight in a professional boxing match without meeting each of the following requirements or an alternative requirement in effect under regulations of a boxing commission that provides equivalent protection of the health and safety of boxers:
(1) A physical examination of each boxer by a physician certifying whether or not the boxer is physically fit to safely compete, copies of which must be provided to the boxing commission.
(2) Except as otherwise expressly provided under regulation of a boxing commission promulgated subsequent to the enactment of this Act, an ambulance or medical personnel with appropriate resuscitation equipment continuously present on site.
(3) A physician continuously present at ringside.
(4) Health Insurance for each boxer to provide medical coverage for any injuries sustained in the match.
If that wasn’t enough to show the gross negligence of the Kentucky State Boxing Commission here is one more violation concerning the ringside doctor.
The ringside physician for this fight, Dr. Manuel Mediodia, has been twice suspended for violations involving illegally dispensing controlled substances in Ohio, where his offices are located, a fact originally reported on ESPN’s “Outside The Lines”.
The 74 year old Mediodia told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he would not have administered the oxygen anyway. “I didn’t ask for any,” he said. “I didn’t see any heavy breathing and made a note that his breathing was unhurried.”
That’s a shame, considering that Bill Martin, chief of the fire and emergency medical service of Erlanger, where the fight took place, explained that administering oxygen is basically standard procedure.
“Our crew would have taken oxygen with them when they went into the building,” he said. “We would place a patient with a head injury on an apparatus, which has an oxygen reservoir and a mask.”
Mediodia later admitted, “That was a stupid thing I said.”
Another stupid thing was the fact that rather than being at ringside during the fight, which is what Federal law required, Mediodia was somewhere else in the building when Page was dropped to the canvas in the tenth round of the fight. in fact, one of Page’s friends, a Louisville police detective named Jonathan Bryant, had to go find him and bring him to ringside for Page to receive any kind of attention, a process that took several minutes. It also took nine minutes for a call to be made to 911 emergency line.
Those were critical minutes for Page, who experienced respiratory and cardiac arrest upon his arrival at the hospital, a process that took about 20 minutes. The first hospital he went to, St Luke’s in Erlanger, did not have a trauma unit, so he then had to be transported to University Hospital in Cincinnati, where he underwent brain surgery.
It’s also possible that Page didn’t receive a proper physical examination prior to the fight. According to Nancy Black, executive director of the Kentucky Athletic Commission who originally told ESPN, “I do not have any documentation that Page had a complete physical.” Since then it was later determined that Page did have a physical that was considered “satisfactory” by Kentucky standards; further information revealed the so called physical in this case was no more than having his blood pressure taken.
As for health insurance, the fourth requirement in the Federal law, that was non-existent too. Promoter Terry O’ Brien said he didn’t even know he needed oxygen available for his man to fight.
Page’s trainer, a former law enforcement officer by the name of James Doolin, said he actually passed a note to the commissioner’s at ringside, noting that there was no oxygen; he was assured it would be there when Page stepped in the ring. Doolin then wrote a formal complaint to the commission, via certified mail, on March 22, 2001.
Several months after the letters were sent they were never any formal replies of any kind. Lawyers were contacted, promises were made and even threats were made but as time went on Page was still in a wheelchair with a feeding tube in his stomach. It took until 2007 but Page finally won a settlement for $1.2 million to cover all the medical bills, lawyer fee’s, etc…
Page’s wife Patricia said, “It’s not a lot of money but it will help make her husband’s life a little more comfortable.”
Governor Ernie Fletcher dissolved the Kentucky Athletic Commission several years ago. It was replaced by the Kentucky Boxing and Wrestling Authority.
Going into the $1,500 March 2001 fight with Dale Crowe, Page was 42 years old and had a career record of 58-16-1. Crowe was 24 and considered an up and coming boxer. Page went down in the tenth round and never got up.
Just over a week ago Page’s fight was finally over. His wife, Patricia Page told the Associated Press that her husband he’s a in a better place.