Law school students join fight to increase insurance for boxers

Jayme Martinez could see clearly where surgeons had reattached part of boxer Z "The Dream" Gorres' skull.

As Gorres sat in front of her in a wheelchair, a scar on the right side of his head had yet to be fully covered by his thick black hair, evidence that surgeons only recently stitched back the bone that was removed to give his battered brain room to swell.

"You see his condition and it gives us even more momentum for our work," Martinez said after a Thursday meeting with Gorres at the office of Dr. Benito Calderon.

Boxers, she said, deserve proper health insurance so neither they nor taxpayers have to worry about medical bills when they are hurt.

The financially strapped Gorres, who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a November fight at Mandalay Bay's House of Blues that left him partially paralyzed, rang up medical expenses of nearly $600,000 during two months of intensive care at University Medical Center.

The health insurance the 27-year-old father of four carried into the ring only covered $50,000 of the bill.

Martinez is part of a legal team associated with the Boyd Law School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, that is helping to prepare legislation that could ensure fighters have catastrophic health insurance when they enter the ring.

Martinez, a recent law school graduate who is studying to pass the bar exam, met with Gorres for about 30 minutes Thursday along with law school professor Robert Correales and first year law students Jonathan Winn and Ryan Devine. They wanted to get an idea of whether the fighter believed increasing health insurance for boxers deserves a sense of urgency.

It's much needed, Gorres said in a barely audible voice. "We need help."

Gorres' huge medical bill is now something that Southern Nevada taxpayers must largely pick up since state law currently requires promoters to put up only $50,000 of medical insurance for each fighter before a bout.

Gorres, who is scheduled to return to his native Philippines today, said he appreciates efforts that would give boxers "better peace of mind."

"I worry about not paying bills; that is not my way," he said in halting English. "People have been so nice to me."

Calderon, also a native of the Philippines, befriended Gorres after the fight that changed his life. Since Gorres was recently released from UMC, Calderon has helped the fighter with his rehabilitation.

"He is a very good man," said the physician, who believes it will be at least another six months before the extent of Gorres' paralysis is known.

Boyd professor Robert Correales, who was also on hand at Calderon's office, said the idea of associating the law school with new boxing legislation came from UNLV boxing coach Frank Slaughter. He has worked with Calderon to set up the Gorres family in a soap making business in the Philippines..

"We're going to look at ideas for this from all over the world," Correales said. "Coach Slaughter understands Nevada should be out front on this because we're the boxing and mixed martial arts capital of the world."

It was also Slaughter's idea that the legal team see Gorres before he left for home.

"I'm sure it will give them the motivation to get the job done," Slaughter said. "This is what can happen in the ring. This kind of health insurance reform is long overdue."

Martinez said she has long been interested in the welfare of boxers because her husband trains young fighters.

"Their life often is not an easy one," she said. "Very few get the money of world champions, and they just struggle to make it. But they want to make it on their own. They don't want to have insurance problems. "

Winn, a former football player at Idaho State University, said that when Correales mentioned that students could work on this project he was immediately interested.

"I broke my leg playing football," he said. "I don't know what I would have done if I had not had the proper coverage. I couldn't have paid for it, so somebody would have."

Devine, who coached athletics in high school before attending law school, said it is clear that both boxers and taxpayers need a voice in an athletic industry where so much money is made. Promoters, he said, may have to do more to step up to the plate.

"People have a lot of respect for you and want the right things to happen," Devine told Gorres.

Correales told Gorres that he believes promoters make enough money off fighters to provide more insurance.

"We are going to investigate just how big of a problem this is," the professor said. "Nevada can be the model for the world on health insurance for boxers."

Between 1995 and 2005, 10 boxers suffered brain injuries in Las Vegas. Two of them died. Because of federal privacy laws, UMC cannot divulge how much care the hospital provided for the fighters, for which it was not reimbursed. Gorres' wife gave UMC permission to release her husband's medical information to the Review-Journal.

Correales said he and the Boyd legal team will work closely with legislators on bills that can be introduced in 2011.

Assembly members Tick Segerblom and Mark Manendo, both D-Las Vegas, have already promised to introduce new legislation requiring far more health insurance for fighters.

Pat Lundvall, chairwoman of the Nevada Athletic Commission, has said she envisions a monetary pool for catastrophic injuries being funded through a small percentage of both ticket sales and pay-per-view sales in Nevada.

Lundvall said through a spokeswoman that she looks forward to working with the law school's team on new legislation.

Martinez has already started researching other catastrophic injuries suffered by boxers in Nevada in hopes of determining just how much health insurance is needed by fighters.

"What happened to Mr. Gorres is terrible," she said. "But maybe some good can come out of it."

Contact reporter Paul Harasim at pharasim@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2908.