After an early Saturday stabbing, both the Redskins and agent James Gould declared that Redskins receiver Brandon Banks is “fine.”
Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie told PFT on Saturday that Banks received stitches, and that he was expected to be released from the hospital soon.
Said Gould in a Saturday statement, “Brandon was injured by the assailant with a surface knife wound on his side which will require stitches. He is recovering in a local hospital and is expected to be released within 24 hours.”
Four days later, Banks remains hospitalized. A four-day hospital stay in this day and age happens only when the patient’s condition is serious. Women who have delivered babies are sent home in less than half that time. (Men who have delivered babies usually are kept a tad bit longer.)
According to Mike Jones of the Washington Post, doctors inserted a tube into Banks’ chest to prevent his lung from collapsing.
When informed of the true state of Banks’ condition, Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie told Jones, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
So it looks like Gould was disseminating embellished information. And, apparently, Gould was disseminating embellished information because he was getting embellished information from Banks’ family.
“He has a knife wound and a tube in his chest,” Gould told Jones Tuesday. “And with that tube, he’s had repeated X-rays. I do know that today’s X-rays were good, so I’d expect him to be released very soon. There’s no sense in rushing. Taking all of the necessary precautions is very important because knife wounds are dangerous. He was knifed in the chest.”
So why did Gould call the “dangerous” situation a “surface knife wound” on Saturday? “I’m not there, so I don’t know how deep it was, how many inches it went in, but it was on the left side,” Gould said.
We can understand why Banks’ family would be reluctant to put the truth out there initially, but someone had to realize that the truth eventually would come out. Then again, telling the rest of the world about Brandon’s condition surely was the last priority in the aftermath of the stabbing.