Everett proof that miracles can happen

Devin Hebert's pass got tipped. A defender intercepted it. Hebert hustled to make the tackle. Something then went terribly wrong.
Hebert felt his own neck snap. Then he felt nothing else.

"I knew I was paralyzed, but I wasn't crying. I just kind of had a sad voice and didn't know what to do," he told Michael Sudhalter of the Houston Community Newspapers.

Since the tragedy, Hebert, a 16-year-old junior varsity quarterback at Jersey Village High near Houston, has befriended a former NFL tight end and fellow Texan named Kevin Everett.

Everett sees Hebert, paralyzed from the waist down, and realizes, "there but for the grace of God go I."

Hebert sees Everett and tells him, "I want to become like you one day."

Three thousand times a year in high school football and lower levels, severe neck injuries occur, though not all as devastating as Herbert's trauma. It happens less frequently in college, or in the National Football League.

That's where it happened to Kevin Everett, who visited Huntsville Friday at the behest of The Orthopedic Center and its partners. He was accompanied by a wise-cracking, dice-rolling doctor named Andrew Cappucino, who didn't merely help Everett walk again, but kept him alive with treatment that was equal parts genius and gamble.

Everett's story may be relatively familiar to football fans. He was a tight end for the Buffalo Bills. On Sept. 9, 2007, at 2:30 p.m., he was covering the second-half kickoff and tackled the Broncos' Dominik Hixon on a collision so fierce "I thought a gun had gone off," remembered Cappucino, one of the Bills' team physicians.

Everett lay face down on the field, motionless. Fortunately, Cappucino, a spine specialist, had recently conducted a "refresher course" on spinal injuries with the Bills' training staff. Everyone responded perfectly to Everett's injury.

Controversial treatment

Cappucino then opted for a controversial method of treatment in which Everett's body was essentially turned into a human refrigerator coil. His body temperature was lowered drastically to reduce swelling around the injury.

Still, thought Cappucino, "He's never going to walk again. And he might be on a respirator the rest of his life."

But Everett, conscious though struggling to breathe, said, "Do whatever you have to do because I'm going to beat this."

Everett underwent surgery. Screws and plates were placed in his neck. ("He now picks up FM radio on a routine basis," joked Cappucino.) Within two days, nurses noticed Everett's legs moving. Within three days, he was off the respirator.

Today, Kevin Everett walks.

There's still some tingling in his extremities. His feet grow numb if he's stands for too long. But there are few, if any, visible clues to his injury. He's traveling the country, helping raise money for the Kevin Everett Foundation, which helps low-income families cope with the vast expense incurred after serious spinal injuries.

Devin Hebert has it right. Maybe we all should want to become like Everett one day.

In the world of sport, there's a word that gets bandied about recklessly. Miracle. A miracle comeback. A miracle basket. A miracle is worth a million but we treat it like a nickel. We've cheapened it. Not Everett.

"When you mention miracle," Everett said, "the first thing you've got to take into consideration is God. This could have been a lot worse. But God spares you. And there was the timing of it all. ... And my doctors and staff and everybody who took a part in my surgery and recovery to get me to where I am today, where I feel normal. That's a miracle."

There's one more miracle. Maybe two.

Devin Hebert went home from the hospital two weeks ago.

Four weeks ago, Kevin's wife Wiande came home from the hospital with the couple's first child, a daughter, Famatta

"It's a beautiful thing," said Everett. "A beautiful thing."

(al.com)