By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CONSTANTINE — As a senior, Gregg Reed was a key cog of the Constantine wrestling team that made the state semifinals back in the 2023-24 season, winning a match in the state semifinals at 190 lbs. against a wrestler from a powerful Dundee team. Reed, who was nicknamed the “Giant Slayer,” also made the state rounds individually and finished fifth in his weight class on the mats at Ford Field.
Two years later, at the age of 19, after what his family has alleged was an assault at an after-prom party, he now deals with multiple uncontrolled seizures a day, including in his sleep, that his doctors say are drug-resistant and need to be constantly monitored. Because of this, his family says he’s unable to work, attend college, or even live an independent life.
A benefit dinner being held in early March in Constantine is being set up to support Reed and his family with the costs for Reed’s medical treatment. It will take place at the Harvey House in Constantine on Sunday, March 8 from noon to 4 p.m.
Rachel Marcotte, Reed’s mother, said in an interview with the Commercial-News earlier this month the seizures his son has been facing for the last year and a half stem from an alleged incident she says occurred at an after-prom party unaffiliated with the school district at the house of one of Reed’s friends in May 2024.
It is alleged by Marcotte, via what she had reportedly heard from witnesses to the alleged incident, that in the early-morning hours while the party was still going on, Reed had knocked over another person’s cup while playing a flip-cup game, and that person then allegedly kicked over the chair Reed was sitting in, causing Reed’s head to hit the concrete floor, knocking him unconscious, and then the person started “hitting my son in his face while he was unconscious.”
Marcotte alleges that no one at the party, neither the students nor adults that were reportedly there, called for medical attention for Reed, carrying him up to a couch in the living room and then left the party, adding that he may have been on the couch for between 10 and 12 hours. Marcotte went over to the house after searching Reed’s location to pick up her son the next evening – alleging the parent at the home she talked to on the way there said Reed was not there – and recalled her son “stumbling” out of the house and unable to remember what happened at the party.
A week and a half later, Marcotte said, Reed started getting “these weird feelings,” something he only told her about one time, but ultimately, he refused to go to the hospital, saying it “went away.”
On Aug. 26, 2024, Marcotte recalled Reed waking up with a “horrible, horrible” headache that went away a few hours later after taking Aleve. While she was driving Reed to a back-to-school pool party at her house, Marcotte said Reed had a grand mal seizure in the front seat of her car.
“I will never forget the sound of the breath my son took in, and his whole chest caved in, and he took his whole upper part of his body and slammed it into the dash of my car,” Marcotte said. “My other son in the back seat, which is a year older than him, he was screaming. We reached in, my son was not breathing. We pulled my son out of the car, and he had no pulse, no heartbeat, no nothing.”
An ambulance and EMS personnel arrived about 15 minutes later, and Reed was able to recover from the seizure. Marcotte said after that, they went to multiple doctors and specialists to figure out why he was having seizures, and eventually he was diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury (TBI) on the left side of his brain by doctors in Grand Rapids.
Marcotte said Reed has multiple different kinds of seizures now, including so-called “silent seizures,” where she says he stops breathing and then convulses, meaning they cannot hear when he’s having the seizures unless they’re right next to him.
Reed initially did not want to press charges in regards to the alleged assault, Marcotte said, but after seeing a video of one of his seizures for the first time, Reed opted to press charges with the St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Office. St. Joseph County Sheriff Chad Spence confirmed Monday that an investigation into the alleged assault is ongoing, and there have currently been no arrests made or charges filed as they continue their investigation.
In a written statement by Reed received by the Commercial-News, he stated he needs an epilepsy monitoring device and other medical equipment now to help alert his family to when he’s having seizures, especially at night, but his insurance will not cover the cost for the equipment.
“This device could truly be the difference between life and death for me,” Reed wrote. “In addition to this, I have ongoing medical expenses and unpaid ambulance and hospital bills that insurance is barely covering.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
