MAPLE VALLEY, Wash. (AP) — Inside the second-floor bedroom, the walls remain unchanged from five years ago: blue paint with a pasted wraparound border of footballs, baseballs, basketballs and soccer balls.
It speaks to the time when 18-year-old Zack Lystedt last lived a regular life, before a head injury made him the face of concussion awareness.
The injury led to the Lystedt Law, first passed in the state of Washington in 2009 and copied nearly two dozen times since. The Washington law keeps athletes high school age and younger from returning to the playing field without a doctor’s authorization when a concussion is suspected.
On Friday night, Lystedt will step out of his wheelchair and walk with the assistance of a cane across the stage to collect his diploma from Tahoma High School.
