holy [censored]......kevin everett update........

Report: Doctor says Everett has voluntary movement of arms, legs
ESPN.com news services

Updated: September 11, 2007, 6:23 PM ET

The doctor who performed the spinal surgery on Everett told Buffalo TV station WIVB on Tuesday that Everett has voluntary movement of his arms and legs and as a result he is optimistic that Everett will walk again.

Dr. Andrew Cappuccino told WIVB that Everett's sedation levels were lowered on Tuesday, allowing him to respond to verbal commands. WIVB also reported that Everett's latest MRI shows only a small amount of swelling on his spinal cord.

On Monday, Cappuccino said that Everett sustained a "catastrophic" and life-threatening spinal-cord injury and was unlikely to walk again.

"A best-case scenario is full recovery, but not likely," Cappuccino said Monday. "I believe there will be some permanent neurologic deficit."

Everett was hurt Sunday after he ducked his head while tackling the Denver Broncos' Domenik Hixon during the second-half kickoff. Everett dropped face-first to the ground after his helmet hit Hixon high on the left shoulder and side of the helmet.

On Monday, Cappuccino noted the 25-year-old reserve tight end did have touch sensation throughout his body and also showed signs of movement. But he cautioned that Everett's injury was life-threatening because he was still susceptible to blood clots, infection and breathing failure.

Everett is in the intensive care unit of Buffalo's Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital, where he is under sedation and breathing through a respirator as doctors wait for the swelling to lessen.

Cappuccino repaired a break between the third and fourth vertebrae and also alleviated the pressure on the spinal cord. In reconstructing his spine, doctors made a bone graft and inserted a plate, held in by four screws, and also inserted two small rods, held in place by another four screws.

Doctors, however, weren't able to repair all the damage.

Bills punter Brian Moorman immediately feared the worst when Everett showed no signs of movement as he was placed on a backboard and, with his head and body immobilized, carefully loaded into an ambulance.

"It brought tears to my eyes," Moorman said after practice. He said the sight of Everett's motionless body brought back memories of Mike Utley, the former Detroit Lions guard, who was paralyzed below the chest after injuring his neck in a collision during a 1991 game.


Utley, Moorman recalled, at least was able to give what's become a famous "thumbs up" sign as he was taken off the field. Everett didn't.

"That's what I was waiting for, and that's what everybody else was waiting for," Moorman said. "And to have to walk back to the sideline and not see that made for a tough time."

Utley, who lives in Washington state, was saddened to see replays of Everett's collision.

"I'm sorry this young man got hurt," Utley said. "It wasn't a cheap shot. It was a great form tackle and that's it."

Cappuccino received permission to operate from Everett's mother, Patricia Dugas, who spoke by phone from her home in Houston. She and other family members arrived in Buffalo on Monday. Everett was born in Port Arthur, Texas, and played high school football there.

Buffalo's 2005 third-round draft pick out of Miami, Everett missed his rookie season because of a knee injury. He spent most of last year playing special teams. He was hoping to make an impact as a receiver.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BlueWahooChambor</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Report: Doctor says Everett has voluntary movement of arms, legs
ESPN.com news services

Updated: September 11, 2007, 6:23 PM ET

The doctor who performed the spinal surgery on Everett told Buffalo TV station WIVB on Tuesday that Everett has voluntary movement of his arms and legs and as a result he is optimistic that Everett will walk again.</div></div>

This is fantastic news. [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif[/img] Makes me very happy to hear this.

Glad to hear this. Lets hope its not temporary.

Once I read this earlier, thats when I realized the board was down. This is one of those few good news stories. Hopefully it's not followed up by something bad.

If the man upstairs wants him healed, he will heal. I do indeed believe in "miracles", as well as know there is the greatest physician upstairs. I am elated at the news.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R0cketer</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Once I read this earlier, thats when I realized the board was down. This is one of those few good news stories. Hopefully it's not followed up by something bad. </div></div>
thats what im thinking.......im hoping that this isnt just some fluke thing

what a turn of events for this kid in the past 24 hours

first your mother comes up from houston and is told you likely will never walk again.......to having the doctor now tell you your son may walk out of the hospital with you

More great news about Everett.. sorry if this has been posted already:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/fo...ex.html?cnn=yes

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Patricia Dugas reached out, touched Kevin Everett's arm and asked her son if he could feel her hand. Everett -- lying in a hospital bed, barely awake and hooked to life support systems -- nodded yes.

"I can't even explain it to you, he's like a miracle," Dugas said, her voice breaking in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

Everett's mother spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday, one day after doctors reversed Everett's grim prognosis when he voluntarily moved his arms and legs.

"That's right. They're surprised themselves," Dugas said. "They don't know Kevin Everett. Oh, man, I always told him when he was a little boy, 'You show them better than you can tell them.' He's going to be fine. I really believe it."

She said Everett can shake his head, even throw it back in laughter. He has trouble speaking because of a breathing tube, so instead she said Everett is using a device to spell out words on a screen by hitting letters with a pen in his mouth.

. . .

"Based on our experience, the fact 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."</div></div>

It's sounding better and better.

Doctors cautiously optimistic as Everett awake and aware

AFP
September 12, 2007
BUFFALO, United States (AFP) - Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett is awake and breathing on his own four days after suffering a "catastrophic" spinal injury in a National Football League game.

At a news conference on Wednesday, doctor Kevin J. Gibbons, who was part of the team that performed emergency surgery on Everett on Sunday, said the medical team was "very pleased" with the progress the 25-year-old has made so far.

Asked if he believed Everett would walk again, Gibbons was optimistic.

"I would not bet against it, but he has a long way to go," he said. "He understands what happened to him, he realizes in some part what lies ahead."

Everett collided with Denver Broncos' returner Domenik Hixon on the second-half kickoff. He lay motionless on the field and play was halted for about 15 minutes as medical personnel attended him and removed him to an ambulance.

The same night, Everett underwent about four hours of surgery during which doctor Andrew Cappuccino repaired a break between the third and fourth vertebrae and also alleviated the pressure on the spinal cord.

To reconfigure Everett's spine, doctors also made a bone graft and inserted a cage and a plate, held in by four screws, and inserted two small rods that are held in place by another four screws.

They also lowered Everett's body temperature, which may have inhibited further injury to the spinal cord. He was also deeply sedated.

While Cappuccino said on Monday that Everett's chances of walking again were "very slim," subsequent medical tests and the players' ability to voluntarily move his legs had caused doctors to revise their opinions.

"On Tuesday morning we lifted the sedation briefly and were able to examine him," Gibbons said. "He demonstrated a clear improvement in the motor function in his legs.

"He had the ability to wiggle his toes, there was a slight movement at the ankles, and most important, with the knee elevated, he was able to kick out his lower leg against gravity. We were very pleased. In his upper extremities there was a hint of ability to flex the arm at the biceps - and I do mean slight.

"This morning he continues to demonstrate improvement in his legs to the point where he can bend his hip to bring his knee up slightly and straighten out the knee," Gibbons added. "He demonstrated reasonable and continued movement at the ankles and the ability to wiggle his toes. He has improved triceps motion. The biceps function seems to fluctuate. There is no movement or function at all in his hands."

He said the fact Everett could breathe without the ventilator was "good news - a major achievement."

Despite the cause for optimism, doctors continued to caution that Everett faced a lengthy and difficult recovery, and is still a danger of complications including potentially dangerous blood clots.

"We still have a long way to go," Cappuccino said. "The prognosis is still variable. I am still an optimist, and I am cautiously slightly more optimistic."

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> </div></div>

Kevin Everett's mom hopeful of Bills player's recovery: 'He's like a miracle'

By JOHN WAWROW, AP Sports Writer
September 13, 2007

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Patricia Dugas can't help but notice that every time she enters Kevin Everett's hospital room, her son looks more and more like himself.

"I can't even explain it to you; he's like a miracle," Dugas said Wednesday, her voice breaking in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "There's not a whole lot, but enough to give me some hope. And that's all I need, because hope will take me a long way."

Look at how far it's gotten her since Sunday, when Everett, the Buffalo Bills reserve tight end, sustained a life-threatening spinal cord injury while making a tackle in the team's season opener against Denver.

Dugas left her home in Port Arthur, Texas, on Monday fearing her son would never walk again. Everything changed Tuesday, when she watched Everett move his limbs and feel her touch when he was partially awakened from a sedated state.

By Wednesday, doctors at Buffalo's Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital were confident enough to remove Everett from a respirator and began amending their initial prognosis from "bleak" to "cautious optimism," regarding the chances of his recovery.

"The patient's made significant improvement. But no one should think the functions in his legs is close to normal. Not even close," said Dr. Kevin Gibbons, the hospital's supervisor of neurosurgery. "If you ask me, 'Would he walk again?' I would tell you that I wouldn't bet against it. But he has a long way to go."

Everett can wiggle his toes, bend his hip, move his ankles, elevate and kick his leg, as well as extend his elbows and slightly flex his biceps, Gibbons said. While all are significant signs of improvement, he noted that Everett has yet to show any movement in his hands.

"Walking out of this hospital is not a realistic goal, but walking may be," said Dr. Andrew Cappuccino, the team's orthopedic surgeon.

Dugas spoke publicly for the first time Wednesday, elated at what she's witnessed since her initial visit, when she found her son under heavy sedation and his body functions controlled by life-support systems.

"It was devastating," she said. "I kind of stepped back. But I had to go forward. And I got up to him and told him I loved him."

And now?

"Happy," said Dugas, who has spent the past three days at her son's bedside. "I'm extremely happy. I'm grateful."

Everett was hurt after ducking his head while tackling the Denver Broncos' Domenik Hixon during the second-half kickoff of the Bills' season opener. He dropped face-first to the ground after his helmet hit Hixon high on the left shoulder and side of the helmet.

Unable to get the Bills game on TV at home, Everett's mother called several sports bars and learned one just around the corner was showing the game.

Dugas walked in as the second half began, just in time to see her son fall to the ground.

"That's the first thing I saw. I was so upset. I was distraught, and I started panicking, 'What can I do? And I've got to get to him because he's not getting up,"' she said. "I can't explain to you how I felt, because there's no words for it. It was the worst thing I had ever saw."

"'Get up,"' Dugas recalled saying. "I mean, I can't explain it. It was just horrible."

With help from some bar patrons, Dugas composed herself, went home and immediately began making plans to travel to Buffalo.

Then came the next shock.

Cappuccino called from the hospital to inform Dugas of her son's condition. A few minutes later, Everett was on the phone.

"He put him on the phone and (Everett) said, 'Momma, don't worry. I love you. I love my sisters. I know I'll be all right,"' Dugas said. "He asked if I was coming, and I said, 'Momma is coming. You don't even worry about that."'

Despite knowing Everett's condition, Dugas was comforted by hearing his voice.

"I was so proud of him, laying in the condition that he was in and thinking about me, his family" she said.

His Bills family isn't just thinking about him -- numerous players also visited Everett on their day off Tuesday.

"I started cracking little jokes to keep him upbeat," tight end Robert Royal said. "He was actually laughing a little bit when we were talking about football stuff. ... He was excited, and we told him we would stick by him no matter what."

Coach [richard] Jauron, who also visited Everett, acknowledged it would be difficult for his team to prepare to play at Pittsburgh on Sunday.

"There's no way to pretend that Kevin's situation does not occupy our thoughts and our conversations a lot of the time. It certainly does," Jauron said. "But I think our guys are professional enough, and they really care enough about what they do."

Dugas thanked the Bills, the hospital medical staff and fans for their work and support. Part of her time with Everett is spent reading him the many cards and letters that already have arrived at the hospital.

"We're going to take it slow getting him up on his feet, but we hope to see him walk out of here," Dugas said. "I always told him when he was a little boy, 'You show them better than you can tell them.' He's going to be fine. I really believe it."

Everett has support from Utley, Byrd, Burroughs and others
By John Helyar
ESPN.com
(Archive)
Updated: September 12, 2007

An ill-fated tackle on Sunday plunged Kevin Everett into a hellish week of loss. Instead of commanding his finely chiseled body, he could do nothing with it -- until he finally moved his arms and legs late Tuesday afternoon. Instead of exhorting his Buffalo Bills teammates in the late stages of their game against the Denver Broncos, he struggled to breathe on a ventilator. Instead of shooting for a breakthrough third year in the NFL, his football career almost surely ended.

Yet amid all that loss, Everett gained one thing, even if only he knows and appreciates it later: He joined a small fraternity of NFL players who have also suffered severe spinal-cord injuries and now embrace him as a brother.

Dennis Byrd, the former New York Jets lineman who was temporarily paralyzed in 1992, reached out to Everett's family as soon as he could. The message he delivered, he told ESPN.com on Wednesday, is this: "If there's anything I can do in terms of encouragement, I'd be honored and thrilled to help him in any way I can."

Mike Utley, who has made recovery from spinal-cord injuries his life's work since becoming paralyzed as a Detroit Lion in 1991, stands ready to give Everett a chalk talk on the X's and O's of his new physical needs: how to rebuild atrophied muscles, how to watch out for blood clots, and more.

"Anything he wants, I'll jump," says Utley, who, though a quadriplegic, means it -- literally. Among Utley's many vigorous activities these days is skydiving.

Everett's future is more hopeful, and his benefits as a catastrophically injured player are more substantial, than Byrd and Utley experienced after their injuries. If he remains totally and permanently incapacitated from this injury, Everett stands to collect $224,000 per year, for life, in disability benefits from the NFL.

Everett is due other near-term payments, too. He will be paid his 2007 salary of $385,000. He will receive a $230,000 "injury protection" payment in 2008. (Under the NFL's labor contract, a player who retires due to injury gets an extra year's pay, based on a percentage of his contract.) Everett will also get a $37,500 severance payment, spread over three years.

And he also almost surely qualifies for workers' compensation insurance benefits, which is even more important. NFL players' health insurance extends for only five years after their retirement. In the state of New York, workers' comp means lifetime medical coverage, according to Bert Villarini, the attorney who represents the NFL Players Association on such matters in Buffalo.

"This is an open-and-shut case -- injury in the scope of employment," he says.

Everett, of course, is unfortunate to have been severely injured, but fortunate that it happened while he played for a New York-based team. These insurance programs are set up state by state, and in a number of them -- including Florida, Texas and Ohio -- NFL players sometimes have had problems collecting workers' comp benefits, according to the NFLPA. Teams often lobby state legislatures to limit players' eligibility.

It seems Everett will be well taken care of financially, as well as medically. That's good news not only for him, but also for the league and the NFLPA, whose disability benefits have received harsh criticism by retired players in recent months.

But Everett's path to recovery will involve much more than being able to pay the bills. It will be a physical and mental grind that makes summer two-a-days look like child's play. That's why the NFLers who've already traveled that path can be potentially valuable resources. And while they aren't swarming him now, they've been there; they know better, and they want to be there for him.

Utley, for example, says he will urge Everett to transfer to a spinal rehab center because they have specialized expertise and so much experience in these cases. That's what the ex-Lion did, at Craig Hospital in Englewood, Colo.

Utley says he will also stress the importance of staying positive. That's been his hallmark ever since he gave the thumbs-up sign to a silent Silverdome crowd as he was carried off the field in November 1991. "Thumbs Up" became the motto of his Mike Utley Foundation, founded in January 1992 and devoted to supporting spinal cord research and rehab advancements.

Utley says Everett has every reason to be positive. Whether it's stem-cell research providing new hope for spinal regeneration, or early-response techniques, such as the ice-cold saline solution that was pumped through Everett's system to reduced spinal-cord damage, Utley says, "The treatment is so much more advanced than when we were first going through it."

Staying positive is also vital to handling the psychological trauma that accompanies the physical trauma. Derrick Burroughs, whose spinal-cord injury ended his career as a Buffalo Bills defensive back in 1989, doesn't even recall the bodily pain, even though he was paralyzed for 24 hours. But he'll never forget the emotional pain of watching his old team play in four straight Super Bowls without him.

"What was tougher for me than anything physical was dying at home, watching those games," says Burroughs, who soon felt abandoned and forgotten by the Bills.

Though he had major back surgery to fuse his third and fourth vertebrae, Burroughs couldn't resign himself to retiring. He flew around the country, trying to find a spinal specialist who'd say he was OK and could play. Many nights, he awoke from vivid dreams about playing.

Burroughs finally gave up the ghost and went into coaching. Today, he's the defensive backs coach at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Hopefully, Everett won't have the same experience Burroughs says he did. But Byrd says it's very easy for a catastrophically injured player to feel isolated.

"It took me years to realize that just because I had the injuries didn't mean I couldn't keep up the affiliations [with Jets teammates]," says Byrd, who now coaches high school football in Tulsa, Okla. He has the use of his arms and legs but has disabilities associated with all of them.

Injured football players might be particularly prone to withdrawal, Byrd believes, because they've drawn so much of their esteem from their physical skills. When those are gone, he asks, who are they?

"I learned people love you for who you are, and that was very pleasing for me to learn," Byrd says. "I would love for Kevin to know he'll always be a Bill."

Utley would love to see Everett enter his annual Dam2Dam Thumbs Up! Bike Tour, a fundraiser for the Mike Utley Foundation in which riders with various degrees of paralysis hit the road for 25- to 100-mile treks, on Sept. 29.

Burroughs says he doesn't have immediate plans to contact Everett, but he does believe in the power of the spinal-cord fraternity. He became close with Chucky Mullins, the Ole Miss defensive back who was paralyzed in a game in 1989 and died in 1991.

And Burroughs has already tried to aid Everett in another way. He led his Stillman College team in a prayer for him.