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Her mother Kathleen said they now know that Rowan likely received at least one mild concussions in the days leading up to her death last year. She had complained of a headache after a game on the Friday before her death, her mother said, but since they had been in the sun all day, she didn’t think too much about it.

During a second rugby game on Monday, Rowan, who was captain and one of the experienced players on the team, “really hurt her knee” and talked to her parents about it. What she didn’t mention was that she had also hit her head. She told friends, they later learned, that she felt dizzy and spaced out.

Ottawa Citizen

She failed a driving test the next day, her father said, which could point to how she was feeling, but although she talked to friends about it, she didn’t mention it to her parents. Rowan was tough, said her mother. And, as team captain, she might have felt a responsibility to keep playing. But she was safe and careful with her head. Had she understood the risk, her mother believes, she wouldn’t have gone on the field on May 8, 2013.

On that day, Rowan took a major hit to the head after a tackle during a game and never regained consciousness. It was only at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario that Kathleen Stringer — a nurse — first heard the term “second impact syndrome,” when Rowan’s doctor mentioned it after her family began hearing from friends that she might have suffered an earlier concussion.

On Wednesday, which would have been Rowan’s 19th birthday, Kathleen and Gordon Stringer said helping to promote education about concussions is part of their daughter’s legacy, as was her decision to donate her organs.