by Chris Norton
Yeah, I’m good. I’m calm. It was only a stinger, so I sure didn’t want to make a scene on the football field. I just wanted to get to the sidelines, rest up for my next play, and get back to the game. I wasn’t scared, but the whole experience was really odd. The whole time, I believed my feeling had to come back sooner or later.
Silence permeated the space around us. The only people talking were trainers or coaches, and beyond that, I could have heard a penny drop in the stadium. Ten minutes went by as questions continued. “Can you feel us grabbing your foot? Can you feel this on your leg? Do you feel this prick on your arm?”
* * *
“As the trainers worked to assess the severity of Rookie’s injuries, and his parents and sibling made their way to the field, time stood still. No one in a stadium of 5000+ people uttered a word, the wind stopped blowing, the birds stoped chirping, and the clouds stopped moving. It was a moment in time I will never forget.”
~ Benny Boyd, Former Assistant Coach, Luther College
* * *
I kept saying, “No, no, no, no!”
I had no idea what position my legs or arms were in, but they felt like they were sticking up, almost as if they were suspended in the air. “Are my legs straight?” I asked Kamm. “Are they down?”
“Yeah,” the trainer responded, “they’re straight, and they’re down.”
Despite the time I’d been on the field unable to feel my body, I tried to remain calm, even as they called for the ambulance. Having been a lifeguard, I knew it was important to call an ambulance right away if there was ever any sort of head, neck, or back injury.
“We need to take him to Mayo or La Crosse, and we’re going to need a helicopter,” someone said within earshot.
Panic threatened to choke the rest of the air from my lungs. Okay, this is for real. This is serious. Holy cow, this is a big deal.
My dad poked his head in between the trainers. “Chris, it’s going to be all right, buddy, it’ll be all right. Just stay calm.”
Even before I saw my dad and the strained look on his face, the seriousness of the situation had hit home. I’d been at football games where an ambulance had been called for someone who’d concussed or was knocked out, but never for me. Now I was scared. I closed my eyes to block out what was happening and the concerned looks on everyone’s faces. That must have worried the trainers and EMTs, because they started questioning me again to see if I was okay.
I assured them I was fine—I just didn’t want to look. It was a beautiful October day, my family had made the trek to see me play, and I had plans after the game with my roommate, Richie. I didn’t want to see or think about the nightmare that was playing out around me, so I squeezed my eyes closed. This wasn’t real—it wasn’t happening. I prayed for God to help me through it. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew everything happened for a reason. I prayed that all feeling in my body would return.
“All right, we need to remove his helmet.” The sound of the trainer’s voice broke my concentration, and I opened my eyes.
First, they had to remove the face mask. My Luther trainer was so even-keeled, so composed, that it helped me rein in my fear even as the seriousness of the situation began to register. He used a small precision saw to cut off my helmet. The other trainers stabilized my head while breaking pieces off my helmet to make it as loose and open as possible. With someone holding my neck and head up so my head didn’t drop, they pulled the helmet off, slipping on a neck brace to stabilize my neck.
I didn’t go into hysteria. I didn’t freak out. I tried to stay as calm and just take things as they came, concentrating on breathing, and praying. I kept my eyes closed most of the time, blocking everything out. I wanted to wake up from the crazy nightmare. Sure, I’d heard and read about stuff like this in the news, but it couldn’t be happening to me.
As the EMTs, the doctor, and the trainers loaded me onto the stretcher and began wheeling me across the field, I heard soft clapping from the stadium. Growing up, I watched a lot of sports, and whenever a player was wheeled off the field on a stretcher, he usually threw a thumbs-up to the crowd. I wished I could give a thumbs-up or a wave to assure people I was okay, but I couldn’t even do that.
No longer in denial, fear blazed into an inferno inside my head as I was pushed across the field, put into the ambulance, and sped through the quiet streets of Decorah to Winneshiek Hospital.
* * *
Saturday night when things were at their darkest, I sat there with my eyes closed and thought about every wasted night, every wasted minute I had spent worrying about things that didn’t matter. Stress at work, drama with friends or a youth sport, you name it, I thought, what a waste. When you finally face a real “challenge” you realize how much time we spend worrying about insignificant things.
~Terry Norton, CaringBridge, October 18, 2010
* * *
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2010, was a beautiful fall day. The rising sun felt warm on my back as I scrambled to get our cooler and everything packed in the SUV. Deb and I left our hometown of Bondurant, picked up Alex in Ames, and made our promised stop at McDonald’s for breakfast. The rich colors of the leaves on the trees bordering the highway, and the anticipation of a Saturday college football game, made our drive one of the fastest and most enjoyable we’d ever made to Luther College.
Deb, Alex, and I spent the ride reminiscing about family trips and dreaming of what our future would look like in retirement. My wife and I agreed we’d like to spend the winters somewhere warm, with visions of the kids coming to visit. Alex said she’d definitely become a frequent guest if we moved to a warmer part of the country. All three of us were riding high on life, feeling the kind of joy that, if it were possible to bottle and sell, my retirement plans would have included a Caribbean island.
We got to Decorah and drove to the spot where we normally tailgated with other players’ families. We set up our table and chairs, and I tossed brats, hamburgers, and hot dogs onto the grill while Deb opened containers of side dishes she’d made the day before, placing them on the table as we chatted with our new friends. The aroma of sizzling meat, the cool but not cold breeze, and the sea of Luther’s royal blue and white colors added to the ambiance.
We appreciated the friendly atmosphere at Luther’s tailgate. Most of our adult life was spent socializing with parents of our kids’ teammates. The camaraderie helped make youth sports fun; thus, our kids’ sports teams dictated a lot of our social life. As loyal fans and Chris’s parents, (and myself an admitted extrovert), we hoped to duplicate that fellowship at college.
Our fears evaporated as quickly as the smoke rising from the grill. We had already met and bonded with Pat Vickers and his wife, Buzzy. Their son Rich was Chris’s freshman roommate and one of his best friends, and we really enjoyed their company. With each game, we got to know more parents and soon realized everyone was really friendly. That was the culture at Luther. They totally embraced the freshmen, and parents were accepted the same way. The players and their parents made us feel like we’d been there for four years.
My mom, aunt, and uncle showed up, and they joined us at the tailgate. I introduced them around while they piled their plates with food. When the game started, we left the grill and everything set up, as was customary, and made our way inside the stadium. At halftime, after a slow start to the game, we came back out to the tailgate and snacked, drank, and rehashed the first half with friends before going back in for the remainder of the game. We sat around centerfield, probably about fifteen or twenty rows up.
In the third quarter, after slashing Central’s lead, Luther kicked off from the south end zone to the north end zone. Chris had the sideline coverage right on our side of the field, and the ball got kicked to a guy on his side. Chris could go through the whole game and might never get the ball kicked to his side of the field. My pulse quickened. He was going to have a shot at the play.
As Chris cut his opponent off on the outside, the kid turned back to
the middle. Chris pivoted and made the tackle at his legs, causing the ball carrier to flip over. I saw the collision and heard the familiar smack of helmets and exhalation of grunts. Multiple players lay piled on top of each other, their legs and arms entwined. The ball carrier extracted himself from the pile and limped around holding his thigh. I looked back to where other players were pulling each other from the heap. Someone was still down. One of the Luther players raced over to the bench signaling the problem, and the trainers ran onto the field.
* * *
“As the play was nearing completion, I turned to talk with our QB [Chris Reynolds] about our thoughts for the next offensive series. Suddenly, Chris said, ‘Norty [Chris Norton] is down.’ Reynolds quickly repeated it and added, ‘It doesn’t look good!’”
~ Mike Durnin, Former Head Football Coach at Luther College
* * *
Parents have a sixth sense about their kids, and right away I felt in my bones the downed player was Chris. I’d spent years looking for him from the stands—I knew his build and every nuance of his stance, his walk, and his run. So even though I didn’t see number sixteen, Chris’s number, I knew from instinct that he wasn’t standing around the field with the other players. My heart lodged in my throat as the breath jammed in my lungs. Chris was down.
In all of Chris’s years playing sports, his nose had been broken playing basketball, and his ribs were broken and his shoulder partially torn playing football, but Deb and I had never gone onto the field to check on him. Chris wasn’t very big or imposing; he was just super tough. And when he got hurt, he never wanted any attention. If Chris ever stayed down, I knew he was really hurt.
After I’d scoured every jersey on the field and sidelines looking for number sixteen, realization hit like a thunderbolt. He’d been down a long time. I looked at Deb, and the color drained from her face. I had to be strong for her. I squeezed her hand. “He’s going to be okay.”
She nodded, but her eyes exposed her fear. We were both desperate to smother the ugly truth that every parent fears—some kids get seriously hurt playing the game they love. He’s tough, he’s strong, he’s a fighter, I reminded myself and then called on God. Oh, please let him be okay; please let him just have the wind knocked out of him. Please God.
“Should we go down there?” Deb sat at the edge of her seat. “Do you think he’s all right?”
He’d been down too long. I swallowed my fear, and we made our way down to the bottom of the bleachers. We stopped at the railing as everyone gathered around him. One trainer had knelt onto his hands and knees, and leaning close to Chris’s face, was talking to him. We hadn’t seen Chris move. My heart and stomach dueled with hope and nausea as we walked through the gate and headed onto the field. All the players on both teams had taken a knee.
Deb and I inched forward, our gazes locked to the prone body of our son. Usually, when somebody was hurt, they rolled around a bit or slapped the ground in pain. Chris was immobile; he didn’t move at all. It would have calmed my rapid-fire pulse if he were slapping the ground with a bad knee injury, or a broken ankle, or whatever. Warning bells sounded in my head. Chris hadn’t moved since the moment we first saw him on the ground.
* * *
“I remember Chris’s parents coming down out of the stands and asking Chris if he would move his feet or hands. The look they had as their child was being worked on will always stick in my head. I had become a father eight months earlier that year and I couldn’t imagine what I would be like if that was my daughter being worked on.”
~ Chris Kamm, ATC, CSCS, Former Head Certified Athletic Trainer, Luther College
* * *
Coach McMartin from Central jogged across the field, and he and Coach Benny Boyd, Luther’s defensive backs coach, the man most responsible for Chris attending Luther, and Luther’s Head Coach Mike Durnin, tried their best to comfort Deb and me. They seemed confident and very supportive, but we could tell Chris had suffered a serious injury. They didn’t offer any of those, “Hey, he’s going to be okay; he’s going to be all right,” pep talks. They were guarded with their remarks, like they didn’t want to offer false hope. They knew it was serious.
While we still didn’t have any details about what was going on, I let go of Deb’s vice grip and stuck my head between the trainers. I was Chris’s biggest fan, his oldest coach, and his long-ago hero. Despite my mind-numbing fear, it was time to live up to that billing. “You’re doing good, son. Your mom and I are right here.”
The professionals worked on him, touching different parts of his body. The whole scene just seemed surreal. As they brought the stretcher over from the ambulance, I knelt close to Chris’s head. “You’re going to be okay,” I uttered in my most reassuring voice, the same voice I’d used on him as his coach growing up. “You’re going to be all right.”
It seemed like everything went in slow motion. They couldn’t get his helmet off, so they had to use special equipment. They literally cut the face mask off and then peeled the helmet off piece by piece. The paramedics worked together with the trainers to move him safely onto the ambulance stretcher. They did everything slowly with the utmost care and precision.
The part I remember most, the part that burned like a knife in my gut, was that as they stabilized him, he didn’t move at all. Not one part of his body had moved.
* * *
fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
~Isaiah 41:10 ESV
* * *
TWO EMTs sat in the back of the ambulance next to me, their expressions sober. “We’re en route to medical center with an injured football player with no feeling or movement below the neck,” another said into a walkie-talkie. “Need to prepare ER for X-ray and wait upon further directions from a doctor.”
I’d left behind the field and everything familiar—my family, my coaches, my teammates—with no idea where I was going or what to expect. I lay in a stable position, only able to move my eyes, the sanitized smell of the ambulance adding to the unreality of the situation. Within twenty minutes, a helicopter would arrive at Winneshiek, the local hospital in Decorah, but as we rushed through the streets of my new hometown to the unfamiliar hospital, I felt groundless. My mind refused to accept what was happening.
“You need to decide where you want to go,” one of the EMTs said. “La Crosse or Mayo in Rochester.”
Since I’d never been to or heard of Mayo or La Crosse, I had no idea. “What’s the difference? What do you guys think is the best place?”
“It’s up to you,” he answered with a shrug, looking at the other EMT, “but I’d probably go to Mayo in Rochester.”
With that, my decision was made. If the EMTs thought Mayo was best, who was I to argue?
Our arrival at the hospital almost felt like a scene from ER. A doctor and a group of nurses surrounded me and began asking questions as they hustled me through the hallway. They sawed off my shoulder pads and immediately removed the other equipment. They cut my jersey all the way down and ripped off my wristband—a reminder of one of my friends who’d passed away in a car accident that summer. I always wore it, and it annoyed me that they so callously cut it away.
The hospital staff communicated back and forth with Mayo, pretty much repeating the same questions asked on the field.
“Can you try squeezing, or making a fist with your hand?”
“Can you try curling, or wiggling your toe?”
“Can you feel me grab your finger; can you feel me pulling on your finger?”
“Which foot am I touching?”
All the same questions. I was tired of them. I wanted someone to do something that would help me regain the feeling in my body. I wanted answers. I kept saying, “I have no idea, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
My eyes were closed during most of the questioning. This isn’t happening. How in the world can this be happening? When the do
ctor asked me a question, I’d open my eyes just enough to let him know I was fine; other than that, I kept them closed.
My dad, mom, sister, and grandmother arrived at the hospital not long after I did. They talked to me and encouraged me. “We’re here, Chris. You’re going to be okay. They’re going to take good care of you.”
They assumed I had some sort of head injury because I kept closing my eyes. “I’m fine,” I told them. “If I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend this isn’t happening.”
My grandma stood on one side of the gurney, holding and rubbing my hand. “Can you feel this?” she asked in a calm and soothing voice.
“No, Grandma.”
She kept massaging my hand and arm, as if trying to will the feeling or movement back into me. Grandma’s brows bunched, and she held her lips tightly together. She was scared for me.
My dad and mom were listening and taking everything in. They attempted to stay out of the way, yet be there for me as usual. I could tell they were trying to be strong as the medical staff asked questions, set up the steroid drip, and prepared for the X-rays, but my mom appeared close to tears.
I heard a lot of hustle and bustle around me. The overhead lights shone brightly in my face, even with my eyes closed. Stay calm and relaxed. It’ll work its way out. This is happening for a reason. Just ride it out. Don’t overreact. They don’t know anything yet.
My voice was getting softer, so they asked if I needed any assistance breathing.
“I’m okay,” I said. The last thing I wanted was an invasive procedure.
“If your breathing gets more difficult, and you don’t think you’re getting enough air, let us know right away,” the doctor said. “We can insert a tube down your throat to help you breathe, but we don’t want to do that unless it’s absolutely necessary. We’re not sure about the extent of your injury yet, and we don’t want to risk any further damage to your neck.”
