6 months ago
As the Bills got ready for their 2007 season opener, there was no one more excited than their young tight end, Kevin Everett.
"I was telling my girlfriend at the time, and my mom, this is my year," said Everett.
Kevin had a good first half, catching a pass. The half ended with the Bills leading Denver 7-6. The Broncos would recieve the second half kickoff, with Kevin Everett on the Bills cover team.
"I go out there feeling good about the kickoff," he remembered.
It was 2:37 in the afternoon of September ninth, and Kevin Everett's life would change forever in just six seconds. We played a tape of the kickoff and had Kevin, and his surgeon, Dr. Andy Cappuccino, who was on the sidelines that day, tell us what they remembered.
Coming down on the kickoff, Kevin finds he has a clean shot at the Bronco's return man. "I was thinking like 'I'm going to knock this guy's tail into the next row'." Everett said.
"I remember saying on the sidelines 'what a hit! He cleaned him!'" remembered Dr. Cappuccino.
Scott Brown: "And just tell me what you remember of the hit?"
Everett: "Oh man, I remember everything about the hit. Go down, I see the guy coming toward me, I wonder why the three wedge men aren't coming toward me to block me. They didn't come to me like they normally do every game."
"I Just see the ball carrier coming to me and I'm like 'oh I got a nice hit here.' I tried to level him up, just the timing of it was bad."
"I was conscious from the hit on up until I fell to the ground, hoping that none of my teammates would touch me cause I knew I was paralyzed as soon as I hit the ground."
"I just remember my teammates telling me to get up, and praying that nobody would touch me."
"I'm just telling myself to try to get up and I couldn't breathe, so I'm like I start panicking, I'm trying to say 'help me' but I couldn't say much at all."
"It felt like I was breathing through a coffee straw, literally. You know those little thin coffee straws? It was just like that. That's a terrifying feeling like you're going to suffocate."
Brown: "On the tape, your shoulders are moving, like kind of rocking back and forth."
Everett: "It was me trying to inhale, and trying to get up"
Cappuccino: "The only thing that was working were the muscles in his neck."
Everett: "My arms were just laying, I remember that vividly. I was just trying to get up, man."
This is the first time that the Bills' Head Trainer, Bud Carpenter, has spoken about what went on on the field that day.
"While you're on the way out there, you're always saying 'come on get up, get up,'" he said.
But of course, Kevin Everett would not get up, could not get up.
Brown: "When you were laying there, do you think 'I could be paralyzed for life' or do you not think that way?"
Everett: "Yeah, in the beginning I did. I was like 'wow I'm paralyzed' and I immediately thought about my family, my mother, my sisters, 'wow I can't take care of my family now', that's the first thing that made me panic a little bit. "Just the thought of my mom and my little sisters, that scared me more than anything more than actually being there paralyzed. I wasn't thinking about myself, I was thinking about my family."
Brown: "Because you wouldn't be able to support them?"
Everett: "Yeah."
Brown: "Because your career was over?"
Everett: "Basically."
Brown: "Were you concerned that people were now going to take care of you?"
"Yeah," said Everett breaking down.
The Bills, training, medical staff and ambulance crews have drilled often for just such a catastrophic injury.
Carpenter: "I just grab a hold of the head, neck and keep it motionless so nothing could move. At that moment, I ask Kevin what's going on and at that moment you realize it's serious- 'I can't move my arms or legs, I can't feel my arms or legs.'"
Brown: "That's what he says to you?"
Carpenter; "That's what he says to me."
At that point, one of the Bills trainers motions for Dr. Cappuccino to come on to the field.
Dr. Cappuccino: "I did a quick exam, and at the point that's when I first encountered Kevin. He was having trouble breathing. I say to him: 'can you feel this? Can you feel me moving you? Do you feel me touching you?' That was my examination."
Everett: "They're asking me can I feel anything and I'm like no. They're like asking me 'can you feel this and I'm like no', I don't even know where they're touching me cause I'm face down, I'm like no, I can't feel anything."
Brown: "On a scale of one to ten how bad was Kevin's injury?"
Dr. Cappuccino: "Complete paralysis on the field, the inability to move, the inability to feel anything? That's a twelve on a scale of ten where I come from."
Throughout his time on the field, Bud Carpenter is holding Kevin's head still to prevent any further injury. He's also constantly speaking to Kevin so he isn't startled.
Brown: "So your biggest concern is that he's not going to fight you, or move or jerk in any way?"
Carpenter: "Absolutely, maintaining calm. The more he's comfortable, the easier the process goes. Don't do something that he's not aware of, take it step by step. Some of its a distraction- some of it 'hey are you all right', just calming him, reassuring him."
Everett: "Just telling me to relax, that's true absolutely."
Brown: "And did that help you at all?"
Everett: "Yeah, that helped me a lot."
Everett said what also helped him was prayer.
Everett: "God just started talking to me and it relaxed me and I just started controlling my breathing, controlling my breathing."
Dr. Cappuccino: "Certainly at that point, to me, it appeared Kevin had a tremendous sense of peace over him, but if you wanted to see fear in someone's eyes, I was more afraid than anyone in the stadium.
"If we aren't as precise as we can be with the protocols that we utilize, we can cause further damage to the spinal cord and certainly a loss of life could occur if there was a transection of the spinal cord and the breathing centers were completely knocked out."
Carpenter: "We talked about how we were going to roll him, what we were going to do, how he was going to feel as we do it, why I had my hands where they were."
Everett: "I can recall when they turned me over, Coach Dick Jauron was standing over me and I was staring into his eyes, just staring at him and he's staring back at me. He was just in a dead stare."
Dick Jauron: "I'll remember too for as long as I live. The things you normally say weren't going to suffice at that point. You know, it may sound strange, but it was reassuring to me because there was great strength in this young man's eyes."
Once he was rolled over, Kevin's face mask was removed.
Carpenter: "Always leave the helmet in place, we told him we're not going to touch the chin strap, everything was important for stabilization. After that, after you're comfortable that everything is flowing the way you want it to, you then half roll him, get a spine board underneath him, lock him into place."
Everett: "I was trying so hard to give a thumbs up, boy just let everyone know I was OK."
This all happened within about 15 minutes.
In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Dr. Cappuccino would beign cooling Kevin's body, the treatment that it's believed helped to prevent permanent parlysis.
Today, more than a year later, Kevin Everett is still recovering from his injuries.
He still has some weakness and numbness in his hands and feet, and trouble with his balance.
But given where he was, lying on that field, his journey has been a remarkable one. And today, with Thanksgiving approaching, Kevin Everett knows it was the people on the field with him during those critical 15 minutes that have enabled him to stand tall once again.
Brown: "Do you feel you owe your life to these guys?"
Everett: "Most definitely, I owe it all to them. It could have easily ended on that field on September 9th, so I owe it all to them, I can't thank them enough."
