Terrible News From Rutgers

[TXMike]

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From NJ.com:

Rutgers defensive tackle Eric LeGrand suffered a spinal cord injury Saturday in the Scarlet Knights' 23-20 overtime victory against Army and has no movement below his neck, the school announced today.

LeGrand was injured while making a tackle on a kickoff with 5:10 left in regulation against Army. LeGrand lay motionless for seven minutes while his neck was immobilized and he was placed on a backboard and then carted off to Hackensack University Medical center.

The injury was at the C3-C4 level of LeGrand's vertebrae, and emergency surgery was performed to stabilize his spine. LeGrand is in intensive care at Hackensack and is expected to remain there for the near future, according to a statement released by the Rutgers athletic department.

"We want to say thank you to everyone for all of your prayers, kind words, and well wishes," the LeGrand family said in the statement. "We appreciate every single thought. Eric is in good spirits and we are praying for a full recovery."

Said Rutgers football coach Greg Schiano: "Eric, his family and the Rutgers Football family believe he will recover. We ask our fans and the entire Rutgers community to believe and pray for Eric as he begins the recovery process."

This isn't the first time Schiano has had to deal with a serious neck or spine injury to one of his players.

Following a victory over Temple in 2004, cornerback Dondre Asberry fractured his spine and suffered a head injury when an SUV driving the wrong way on Route 18 in Piscataway hit a Toyota Tercel carrying three Rutgers players head on.

Asberry never played again.

Fellow defensive backs Eddie Grimes and Manny Collins, who were also in the car, suffered facial injuries and did not play the rest of the season. Rutgers, 4-2 after beating Temple, lost its final five games following the accident.

In 2000, Penn State defensive back Adam Taliaferro suffered a spinal cord injury and had surgery to fuse his C5 vertebrae. After eight months of rehabilitation at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Taliaferro was walking.

[Etref]

Prayers to him and his family.

Rick

[LarryW60]

So, so stupid!  ARRGH!

They should force every college and high school team to repeatedly watch the replay section of this clip until they get it through their skulls that they can't be USING their skulls to tackle.  Another great example of a debilitating injury getting dealt to the tackler who uses the top of his helmet to tackle.

[txmustang68]

Seeing this makes me even more grateful to the NFL for finally getting tough on players using the helmets and for unnecessarily rough hits.  Hopefully it will make an impact there and get down to the collegiate and lower levels.  This is absolutely sad, and I pray that I will never have to go through what his mother must be going through now.

[ZebraDan]

That's really awful. My prayers go out to Eric, his family and team.

After seeing a similar story of a local kid playing at a small college (Luther), this is precisely the topic I just spent much of the night writing about in my blog: http://nicecallref.com/can-we-really-prevent-helmet-to-helmet-contac

Obviously this one wasn't helmet-to-helmet, rather the player's head was down - hit with the crown of the helmet and compressed the spine. Unfortunate, freak accident. We just seem to be seeing more lately.

[LarryW60]

If you watch the replay, he had his head up and ducked down just prior to impact.  I'd say he should have been flagged for spearing, but the penalty he actually received trumps any 15-yarder in our book.