Former AFL player Koby Stevens has fallen victim to the ongoing crime crisis in Victoria after his car was smashed and raided in St Kilda.
Stevens, who played 91 games for St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs and West Coast, had his camera gear and a hard drive worth "over a million dollars" stolen from his car, with the contents containing footage of a upcoming documentary Thrive, which dissects the severe impacts of concussion in sports and discusses how those impacted are continuing to heal.
"My name is Koby Stevens. I played AFL for ten years and had to retire in 2018 due to concussion. You might have seen the story around," he said in a social media post, shared by sports presenter Jacqueline Felgate.
โWe have been shooting a huge documentary the last four years, travelling the world about concussion, and following some of the biggest athletes in the world and their healing journeys ... doing so with Eric Bana.
View this post on Instagram
"This morning in St Kilda, I loaded one of the huge hard drives and camera gear into my car, and it was smashed into before I left and stolen.
"The hard drive is backed up but it has over a million dollars worth of footage on it from all over the world for the film, and some pretty important people in it like Eric Bana, etc, which is obviously extremely important and sensitive and hasn't been put out to the public yet because we are still in production.
"It's pretty distressing someone has this now."
Stevens' AFL career was cut short after he suffered multiple head knocks, and was forced into retirement during the 2018 season, flagging serious health issues.
He's admitted that he endured "15 reported concussions", but alluded to the many more that go unnoticed.
"I was diagnosed with POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome), which was a part of my brain that was injured that was affecting my heart rate," he said on Channel 10's The Project last year.
"Every time I stood up, my heart rate would jump up from 40 beats per minute to 130 in a click of a finger.
"My balance issues, my eyes were not good. My headaches were insane."
