Prayers up for my Buckeye brother.

 

He's been taken to the trauma center.

 

The problem is that when the head is down and you make impact, all that force is applied to the spinal column at the bottom of the neck and it takes very little pressure to snap it. Once that happens, you're paralyzed for life....there's no fixing it.

I had a really good friend from high school fall off a hoverboard about six months ago and boom, he's paralyzed from the neck down just like that. Here's the thing though- he could move his arms and legs at first too. It doesn't really make any sense from a medical standpoint.

 

Some positive reports coming out
I have read:
1) He texted a teammate Vince Williams, Williams said “he will be straight”
2) Some dude Colbert said he is making improvements
3) I read Tommy Maddox had a similar injury in 2002 and he played a week later (I know this type of injury is beyond football, I’m just using this as an example of hope that he will be okay)
4) they are labeling it a spinal cord contusion (not sure if this is good or bad but I read that it’s swelling in the lower back)

 

I've heard it is similar to Tommy Maddox, who missed one game. Let's hope it is similar.

 

He has some movement in his lower body extremities

 

I've read that when an injury like that occurs the area should be frozen to protect against further damage. The Buoniconti foundation has done a lot of really good work in spinal injuries.

 

Sorry to hear about your friend, but about the "it doesn't really make sense from a medical standpoint".. it probably does because with so many injuries (including to parts of the nervous system) not all the damage is done at the time the injury occurs. Usually, the medical terms used are "acute", "secondary" and "chronic", but maybe in specific cases like spinal cord injuries they have extra terms.

"acute" usually refers to damage done at or immediately after the injury occurs, "secondary" depends on the case but that can be damage that starts occurring minutes to days and sometimes weeks afterwards, while "chronic" usually refers to longer term damage from months to years.

I know that with neurons the secondary phase often includes cell death due to all kinds of different factors, from changes in the electrolytic composition (different concentrations of ions due to actions of other cells that respond to the initial injury) that causes pre-programmed cell death that can take days or weeks to manifest itself, and immune responses that can cause other types of damage.

In the chronic stage, at least with neurons, I know that a lot of supporting cells tend to start to die off. For example there's something called myelin that surrounds portions of the axon of a neuron (that part of a neuron used to send a signal over a longer distance) and allows signals to travel faster (the current "jumps" from one part of the axon to another so to say, making it go faster). Well, that myelin comes from supporting cells (e.g. Schwann cells or oligodendrocytes) and those cells can take a long time to die off. When they do, speed of communication to the periphery slows down for example.

Anyway, I don't know the specifics for spinal cord injury but I know a bit of basic neuroscience (after all I got a PhD in one aspect of that: the human visual system), and it's not that surprising to hear that the progression of symptoms take time after injury. Also, keep in mind that the majority of such injuries result in partial paralysis, not complete, so it's plausible that things can take time until the symptoms stabilize.

 

That game was brutal - hard to watch. Between the Shazier injury, the concussion to Mixon and the dirty *** hits to Burfict and then Brown ... ugly. And all that after Gronk's spectacle. And people wonder why ratings are down?

It's a violent game, no question. Some things were just bad luck, like Shazier. But damn NFL, are you going to take dirty headshots out or not? NCAA doesn't always get it right with the calls, but the targeting ejections need to come to the NFL.

 

He is still being kept for evaluations but at least now they are saying no surgery will be required.

 

So say he gets everything back and is even cleared to play.....if it was you.....would you keep playing?

I would not.

 

When I was in high school I watched a teammate of mine try to make a tackle, he put his head down and broke his neck. He died right there on the field. The coaches performed CPR and he was flown to the hospital "alive", but he was taken off of life support 2 days later. He was 15.

Anyhow, and even after what I had just witnessed, we all continued on with practice after the helicopter took off and I don't think any of us thought that that could happen to us. Youth is a funny thing. These guys on the football field, for the most part, are in their 20's. They think they're indestructible. Of course there will always be exceptions, but I don't think this injury would change the majority of them or Shazier for that matter. We will see. I'm just glad his prognosis is looking so good.

 

I've seen firsthand what paralysis can do to a person's psyche. It can change a person.

 

Why are all these non Dolphins threads in the Miami Dolphins area? I like the thread just not a Dolphins thread.

 

Both quite valid. Younger folks tend to have much less ... self preservation than an adult. However, if that one incident DOES occur, I think it can really change your perspective. I know I probably won't let my kid play. Will see if he is athletic/sporting, and if so, probably push him to something like baseball. I know I took at least 1-2 good concussions in my HS playing time, and it messes with me. I have issues with short term memory, issues finding/looking for stuff. Big picture I am fine, but small things that just make go "I wonder if it's related."

For Shazier in particular though, I do think the idea of getting back on the field for his teammates will probably overcome the fear of another incident. But with guys retiring early now, you wonder.

 

I wouldn't... IF he fully recovers, it's always going to be in the back of his mind that another tackle could paralyze him for the rest of his life. That's scary.

Per OTC, he's made over $7M. Hopefully, he still has most of it, has made smart investment decisions and if so, will continue to do so, while leaving the game. Just not worth the risk.

 

Tough to say really. If I had a wife and kids, probably not; but if I was single or just in a relationship and had no kids, I probably would return. It’s tough because if you love the game, it can be hard to give it up. I’m a big pro wrestling fan and wrestlers like Stone Cold came back after breaking their neck, some people just can’t quit until they reach that point where there’s no choice but to give up, and I guess I’d be one of them.

At the end of the day we all take risks when we play sports or undertake any extreme activity (eg sky diving, bungee jumping etc). We have to accept the risks and be willing to accept the possibility that if we are unlucky something bad could happen. Most of the time you’ll be fine, it’s rare incidents like this that make us question whether it’s worth taking those risks.

Fingers crossed this guy fully recovers.

 

Probably depends on the person, but I was going to say the same, about how one's perspective probably changes once their first child is born. Not that I was terribly reckless by the time we were starting our family, but I know that was when I started thinking about how some reckless things might end badly and would not only affect me but my family and my ability to have the family life I currently enjoy. So I became a little more careful about that time.
I remember Michael Irvin saying when he hurt his neck and retired, the first thing that crossed his mind when the injury occurred was that he might not be able to play with his kids. He was pretty emotional saying that and it was years later.

 

the other forums are dead. No one visits the other NFL forum and this thread has been active which further proves my point

 

This clip should be included in a video for parents/teachers/kids planning on starting football. Head-down tackling, man...

 

He underwent spinal surgery today. No word on his condition.

 

I saw that and I hope it doesn't mean something unexpectedly bad happened, because earlier this week a report I saw said no surgery. Hopefully that was just a false report.
This surgery Wednesday was called spinal stabilization surgery.

 

I was trying to think of the exact term they used for the surgery and it didn’t sound good when reading that. What scares me is on the day of the injury they said “the next 24-48 hours are key when it comes to improving” and now a couple days later he is having this surgery. Not good.

 

I'm hoping they just had to wait the couple of days for swelling to subside before doing the surgery. I have no idea though. I just read some people talking on a forum saying he probably would not play again and that you don't tend to get a "full" recovery after this surgery. Others said encouraging things like, "it has an 80% success rate", but I'm not sure if success means walking again or full recovery to what he had before the injury. Somebody said it depends on if it was microsurgery or not and that micro surgery might allow him to walk out the next day, although I doubt that. Remember I have no idea who these people are talking about it. They could be anything from Doctors to dummies. Also, the hospital did not specify, so you'd think it was probably regular open back surgery.
At this point I think it is probably unlikely he would play again, but hopefully he can still walk and enjoy a normal life. JMHO though.

 

That’s all the feedback I have gotten too, I was gonna write some of the things people were saying but like you, I thought they could be “dummies” so I didn’t lol but you make great points on the swelling and the 80% success rate is crazy lol we need the reference to what they mean by success although I would be happy to just hear that he makes full recovery to walk, and do the normal daily day to day stuff.

 

Spinal stabilization surgery typically involves fusing two or more vertebrae. It sounds has if he had a compression fracture of one or more vertebrae. I hope his spinal cord didn't sustain any permanent damage.

If he plays again I'd be surprised.