Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett showed increased movement in his legs and one arm after a devastating spinal injury in Sunday?s season-opener against Denver.
Doctors called the movements promising and said he could possibly walk, only time will tell.
“Getting to the injury quickly, stabilizing it quickly, all have an effect,” said Dr. Ira Fedder, with the Scoliosis and Spine Center at St. Joseph Hospital in Towson. “You try to decrease the swelling, decrease the loss of neurons. Then you basically sit back and see what nature gives you.”
Fedder and his partner Dr. Paul McAfee mentored the spine surgeon who is working on Everett ? Johns Hopkins graduate and lacrosse player Dr. Andrew Cappuccino.
Doctors gave Everett corticosteroids to control swelling and injected him with ice-cold saline to chill his blood, which put him into an artificial hypothermia to further control swelling and tissue damage, according to the team?s Web site.
Spinal regeneration remains on the “fringe of cutting-edge research,” Fedder said. Typically, surgeons would bolt metal plates onto the cervical spine to stabilize the bones and take pressure off the spinal chord. In time, the remaining bones will grow back into the gap.
“He had clear improvement in the motor function of his legs,” Dr. Kevin Gibbons, director of the neurological ICU at Millard Fillmore Gates hospital, said in a statement. “He was able to move his legs together and apart, wiggles his toes and had slight movement from his ankle. He was able to kick out his lower leg against gravity with his knee raised. He was able to slightly extend his elbow with his triceps muscle.”
With those signs of muscle movement, the doctors decided to begin warming Everett?s body so they could conduct more tests.
Asked if he will walk again, Dr. Gibbons said that it?s against the odds, but wouldn’t rule it out.
“I wouldn?t bet against it,” he said.
