Posted on 09/12/2007 5:20:36 AM PDT by Red Badger
Kevin Everett voluntarily moved his arms and legs on Tuesday when partially awakened, prompting a neurosurgeon to say the Buffalo Bills' tight end would walk again contrary to the grim prognosis given a day before.
"Based on our experience, the fact that he's moving so well, so early after such a catastrophic injury means he will walk again," said Dr. Barth Green, chairman of the department of neurological surgery at the University of Miami school of medicine.
"It's totally spectacular, totally unexpected," Green told The Associated Press by telephone from Miami.
Green said he's been consulting with doctors in Buffalo since Everett sustained a life-threatening spinal cord injury Sunday after ducking his head while tackling the Denver Broncos' Domenik Hixon during the second-half kickoff of the Bills' season opener.
Everett dropped face-first to the ground after his helmet hit Hixon high on the left shoulder and side of the helmet.
Everett remains in intensive care at Buffalo's Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital and will be slowly taken off sedation and have his body temperature warmed over the next day, Green said. Doctors will then begin taking the player off life support systems including a respirator currently controlling his body functions.
"It's feasible, but it's not 100 percent predictable at this time ... he could lead a normal life," Green said.
On Monday, Bills orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Andrew Cappuccino, said Everett likely wouldn't walk again.
"A best-case scenario is full recovery, but not likely," said Cappuccino, who operated on the reserve tight end. "I believe there will be some permanent neurologic deficit."
Cappuccino was not available Tuesday, and hospital spokesman Mike Hughes declined comment.
In a report Tuesday evening, Buffalo's WIVB-TV quoted Cappuccino as saying: "We may be witnessing a minor miracle."
Bills owner Ralph Wilson said the team has been in contact from the beginning with Green and the Miami Project, the university's neurological center that specializes in spinal cord injuries and paralysis.
Thanks to God
This is not unheard of. I know someone who broke his neck in 7 different places.
He was not paralyzed because he had an abnormally large space between his neck bones and his spinal column.
Indeed! And praise the brainpower He gave to the medics who applied a new super-chilling technique to Everetts neck and spine within minutes of the injury. This revolutionary technique is apparently very new, and the hope is it can help this kind of injury.
I’m so happy to hear this.
prayer bump
Praise God indeed! After reading of Daryl Stingley's football injury resulting in quadriplegia and he died last April, plus Mike Utley's paralysis, it is just wonderful to read that Kevin Everett is doing so well.
Isn't that great, and they kept him unconscious for a couple days so that all his body energy was directed to healing his injury. Sleep is when most of our bodily healing goes on.
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