Natasha Richardson dies at 45...
 

This is really sad. I respect the feelings of her loved ones. Truly shocking.

Link

RIP

This is shocking and saddening. I heard about her accident on the radio this morning, but I didn't know it was that bad!

Wow, I thought it was just a simple ski accident. RIP

Sadly it was worse than we could imagine...

I actually got choked up at the news. Heartbreaking.

I was looking forward to watching her perform Night Music. :(:(:(

Brain injuries are just bizarre. I hear about incredible cases in which people survive enormous impact and come out with "scrapes and bruises," but then Natasha Richardson "falls" while skiing, laughs and jokes about it, has no visible signs of an injury, and then just goes brain dead. I technically understand how the brain could have been swelling or bleeding over the time span, but what gets me is the way other people survive such extreme traumas like a gunshot to the head or a Phineas Gage type of injury... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Phineas_Gage_CGI.jpg

ETA: my post reads with a calloused tone, but that's really not how I typed it to sound. More like a shocked train of thought kind of thing. Her poor boys...

We all understand, trideezy. The shock of someone dying while he or she is supposedly doing so well is always hard. God bless her, and her family. What pain they must be feeling at this moment.

I can't stop thinking of her husband's (Liam Neeson) performance in Love Actually. :(

It's eerie how he's just now lost his wife IRL.

http://images.allmoviephoto.com/2003...tually_004.jpg

This is very sad. I adore these two actors and how they made a celeb marriage work. God bless her family at this time and especially her two young boys. RIP

One of my favorite all time movies. I am stunned and my heart goes out to her family :(

:( RIP

The problem with this story is that we have very few details. From the history given of the incident, she likely suffered from a epidural hematoma. The classic story is that the patient has a blow to the head, may or may not lose consciousness, then feels fine. Hours later if the patient is not treated, they lose consciousness again and die. The bleeding continues from the time of injury until it reaches a point that the pressure on the brain overrides the brains ability to compensate for this pressure change. The patient then herniates brain tissue out of the cranial vault and puts pressure on the brain stem which stops the patient from breathing and they die.

Other penetrating injuries, like Phineas Gage, will produce local injury which may or may not be fatal depending on the importance of the injured brain to basic life functions. There are large areas of the brain that are NOT essential to life. You may end up with memory, speech or motor problems, but if you can breath, you live. Richardson was just unlucky enough to break her skull and tear an artery which caused the fatal bleeding.

This is a very basic review of brain injury. There are a lot of other factors involved in outcomes, but they are more predictable than you think.

What is unfortunate is that if Natasha Richardson had been treated immediately, she may not have died. We'll have to wait for more details to know for sure.

My heart goes out to her family.

I was thinking of that too. One of the few celebrity marriages that seem to have lasted.

It really makes hitting your head a scary thing now. I remember cracking my head on a low-slanting ceiling and having a minor concussion. I didn't go to the doctor or anything, but after hearing about this story, it makes you wonder for future situations.

And I LOVED her in the Parent Trap.