My First Concussion - From the Field to the Ambulance (Part I)

I was 16 years old.  It was a warm Friday night and my hometown football team, The Spartans, were taking on their first opponent of what would become an undefeated regular season on our home turf.  As a 6'1, 200 pound high school junior, I was starting my first game on varsity.  As a relatively fit teen, I played iron man football, manning left guard on the offensive line and right defensive tackle, where I was used heavily as a speed rusher on passing downs (though I excelled more at stopping the run, statistically.  I was credited with a good number of quarterback hurries, but I never notched a sack, at least not solo).

As was tradition, the home stadium was packed with people as attending a football game in my town was a community event.  If you didn't actually like football or know anything about the game, it didn't really matter because so many people attended, if you weren't there, chances are you would be doing whatever you wanted to do alone.  And being that the other major social venue in town was The Mall, wandering around it, being harassed by mall security, wasn't nearly as fun when you weren't with another group of early teens.

It was really something that made your heart jump, coming out of the locker room to do warm-ups.  There is nothing quite like being under the lights at a night sporting event when you are on the field.  The light is different than any other type of light that I have seen in my life.  And the roar of the home crowd is something that goes straight into your blood stream, especially as a teenager on a team with expectations of success.  It has been a long time since I have felt a rush like that.  I miss it.

The stands that night would feature appearances by my parents, my grandfather, probably at least my next youngest sister, if not my youngest one, who was eight, my girlfriend, my best friend, and most of my friend group that didn't play for the team or were in the highly successful Spartan Marching Band, whose halftime shows were enough to draw a big crowd independent of the football team.

Sometime before halftime, the hit occurred.  I have no actual memory of it, but from what I understand, the hit came as I was tackling an opposing runner, with a helmet hitting me in the back of the head.  Halftime commenced a few plays later, and I was somewhat confused, but able to function during the coaches breakdown of what was a successful first half.  When we jogged out for the second half, I was a little more alert, but was suffering from multiple vision that I couldn't shake.

As per ritual, one of the cornerbacks came up to me before I went onto the field for kickoff, my favorite part of the game because I served as a "head hunter," whose sole task was to chase down the ball carrier and knock him into the next weekend, and grabbed me by the front of my jersey.  I weakly grabbed the front of his jersey and we slammed our heads together, facemask to facemask.  It was a tradition we started our first year on JV together.  Except this time, my eyes rolled back and I started to go down.  He grabbed onto my facemask with one of his hands and shook me back to consciousness.  I dropped to a knee, grabbing the side of my helmet and trying to will my vision back to a single version of what was in front of me and he ran for the offensive line coach.

The next part is a bit of blur.  I am seated on the bench with my helmet off.  The sideline doctor is shining an really bright and somewhat painful light in my eyes and asking me questions that I think I answer well enough.  He is asking me about whether or not I peed during halftime.  I don't remember.  I don't think so.  The next thing I know, there is a stretcher next to me.  The doctor informs me I am going to the hospital in an ambulance.  The paramedics tell me I need to lay down on the stretcher.  I tell them I am walking to the ambulance.  A small verbal fight breaks out, with me, out of character, yelling them "I am not getting on the FUCKING stretcher.  I can walk to the FUCKING ambulance."  That ends when my coach, all 6'5, 350lbs of him grabs me by the shoulder pad and says, "You need to get on the stretcher, man.  It has to be that way."  With tears, and three of him in my eyes, I respond that it is my first game as a starter, I can't let my family see me put on a stretcher.  But by then my parents are at the field, and on the stretcher I go.

The last thing I see as I get loaded in the ambulance, five minutes before another one of my teammates gets his own ride to the same hospital with dehydration, is my girlfriend looking over the fence at me, my head immobilized, looking like I just broke my neck or something, with tears streaming down her face.  I yell out, "I'm sorry!" as the scoop me up and in.

In the ambulance, I am inconsolable about what is going on.  I went from taking the field as a varsity starter to leaving in an ambulance, the ultimate sign of weakness in teen boy's world of showing tough.  As the paramedics ask me questions again, I grown frustrated and start punching the inside of the ambulance with my right fist before I am threatened with being restrained.  I remember looking at the doughy paramedic who said it and thinking, Yeah, buddy, you go ahead and try that.