Referee’s fall during Steelers-Ravens game eventually led to cancer discovery

A few months back, a brawl broke out during a Steelers-Ravens game. We grabbed video of the fight, not because of the altercation itself, but rather for a hilarious moment involving referee Tony Corrente. In his attempt to pull players off one another, Corrente took a somewhat comical fall to the turf. He appeared ok at the time.

It turns out that the fall may have saved Corrente’s life. In a story detailed by Peter King of Sports Illustrated, Corrente learned he had throat cancer after coughing up blood after that game.

Afterward, with pain in his head, back and buttocks, Corrente had a choice in the referee’s room — Tylenol or Motrin. And he remembered a former member of his crew saying Motrin was better for pain, so he took 800 milligrams of Motrin and flew home to California.
At home, he noticed he was coughing up blood, and still was the next day. More Motrin. The next week, after doing the Kansas City-Detroit game, Corrente was still taking Motrin, and noticed when he woke up Monday after the game there was blood on his pillow where his mouth had been. His doctor in California, Susan Sleep, set him up with an ear, nose and throat specialist, who snaked a camera through his nose to look at everything.
The camera spied a mass at the base of his tongue, where the tongue led into the throat, extending down the throat slightly. The mass was about the size of a full male thumb.
“What is that?” Corrente asked the doctor.
“Sir, that is cancer,” said the doctor, whose specialty was apparently not bedside manner.

The whole story is definitely worth a read.

For now, Corrente appears to be pulling through fairly well and even worked the Lions-Saints game this past weekend. I’d admonish him for some relatively poor calls during the game but I’ll give him a break for the time being.

We’re pulling you for you Tony.

Yet another accidental hits leads to cancer discovery in the NFL [Bob's Blitz]

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