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SALT LAKE CITY — A young athlete from Denver became musically gifted after two back-to-back concussions put him in the hospital for weeks.
Football and lacrosse were Connor Lachlan's first passions, but after his concussions he began experiencing ongoing symptoms that forced him to quit playing.
"He started to hallucinate and had these mini hallucinations," said Elsie Hamilton, Lachlan's mother.
When doctors told him he couldn't play contact sports anymore, Lachlan started going something he'd never been very good at — playing music.
"He really had no talent," Hamilton said. "I would say, ‘Can't you hear what's next, Mary had a Little Lamb or Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?' and he'd say no."
That was before the concussions.
After Lachlan's hospital stay, he could suddenly play music effortlessly. And we're talking all kinds of music.
He plays the piano, guitar, two types of bagpipes, mandolin and many more.
"I play roughly 10 to 13 instruments," Lachlan said.
And what's even more amazing, he plays them all by ear.
"I can't read music," he said.
Doctors theorize that Lachlan's concussions "turned on" a different part of his brain.
"The thought is just theory that this was a talent laying latent in his brain and somehow was uncovered by his brain rewiring after the injury," said Dr. Spyridon Papadopoulos, Lachlan's doctor.
Of course, no one can say for certain what happened. But Lachlan is happy that it did happen.
"I honestly think something got rewired, something just changed, and thank God it did," he said.
Correction: This story originally reported that Connor Lachlan was from Utah. He is from Denver. We apologize for the error.
