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HEADS UP: Mickelson, who tries to explain his many convictions with “maybe I’m stupid,” learned while locked up in Denver that his brain has suffered from many blunt traumas.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN
APALE-PINK, hairless scar runs across the back of 35-year-old Bryce Mickelson’s buzz-shaved head, an inch-long reminder of just one of the many brain injuries he’s had in his life. At 3, he ran in front of a car and woke up from a coma in the hospital. At 7, a kid threw a rock at his face, ripping it open. At 12, he crashed his bike, his helmetless skull slamming into concrete. Mickelson’s noggin has been banged, bruised and split open so many times he can’t remember every injury. But he never considered the long-term impact of them until he ended up in jail.