In a case that has perplexed doctors, a teenage girl in Kirkwood, Iowa, loses her memory every two hours after a student accidentally kicked her in the head on June 11.
“They tell us there’s nothing medically wrong,” Sarah Horner, Riley’s mother, told WQAD.
“They can’t see anything. You can’t see a concussion though on an MRI or a CT scan. There’s no brain bleed, there’s no tumor.”
Life changed for Riley on June 11 and every morning when she wakes up she believes it is still June 11—the day a student accidentally kicked her in the head while crowd surfing during a dance at the FFA State Convention.
“When she wakes up every morning, she thinks it’s June 11,” said Sarah.
Remembering simple things is not possible for Riley now and she has to keep detailed notes, taking photos on her phone to keep up with her school routine. Her alarm is set for every two hours so that she can revise what she has forgotten.
“I know it’s hard for them as much as it’s hard for me. And people just don’t understand. It’s like a movie,” Riley told WQAD. “Like I will have no recollection of [this interview] come supper time.”
There have been many strange cases of memory loss in the history of medical science.
In 2005, a 38-year-old British man referred to as WO was unable to form new memories after he underwent root canal surgery.
The incident erased 46 years of memories and after the fall he remembered only his feet going into the air.
“My well of darkness seemed bottomless,” Bolzan wrote in his memoir “My Life, Deleted,” according to ABC News.
“Deep down, I knew I wasn’t the same person. I feared I never would be normal again.” He had lost all his memories as a football player with the Boston Patriots and Cleveland Browns, his job as CEO of Legendary Jets, and even his wife.
