Moose collision memory loss shows brain works in mysterious ways, says doctor
Two drivers in the province are unable to remember hitting a moose while driving on the highway, but one doctor says that's not so surprising given how the human brain processes information.
Last week, Stephen Bromley, from Conche, hit a moose with his car. Bromley, however, didn't realize anything was amiss until another driver flagged him down.
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Three years ago, Michelle Higgins experienced something similar. She drove 40 kilometres to work before realizing she struck a moose. Higgins didn't realize she was in an accident until someone pointed out the damage sustained to her car.
Dr. Tia Renouf, chair of emergency medicine at Memorial University, says the brain works in mysterious ways.
"It just points to what an amazing organ the brain is," she said.
"We know we only use a small fraction of it and that's becoming clear in this sort of an episode."
"Essentially your brain, if it gets rattled around enough inside the fixed case, or the skull, the way that your brain sends messages from one part to another simply gets disrupted," said Renouf.
"When the injury happened, the brain just stopped processing new information or very short-term memory in such a way that it could be processed in a stable fashion. It just couldn't stick, so to speak."
This means certain repeat activities being performed by a person, like driving a car, may not be affected because the brain wasn't required to process any new information.
And any new information, like striking a moose, may not be properly processed by the brain, if at all.
Check out Dr. Renouf talking about the brain — and how a person can forget hitting a moose — in the video player above.