| | MIAMI -- Once, not so very long ago, Kansas City linebacker Derrick Thomas used his massive size and phenomenal strength to terrorize quarterbacks and torture offensive coordinators who devised schemes, most often unsuccessfully, for their players to avoid him. Thomas was tough and strong and powerful and fast -- a giant man with a giant heart filled with compassion and understanding who had a gift to lift just about anyone his life touched.
Today Derrick Thomas is a spinal cord patient, a man who may never walk again. His best friend is dead. And around the country, questions still loom as to why neither he nor his friend Mike Tellis was wearing a seat belt last Sunday when their car spun out of control and flipped on an icy Missouri highway.
|  | | Dr. Frank Eismont discusses the injury to Derrick Thomas. |
Thomas had planned to be in Atlanta this week, soaking up a little Super Bowl atmosphere. Instead he's in a hospital bed in Miami, facing the most difficult challenge of his life.
"He's scared," his mother, Gloria Morgan said, "Who wouldn't be?"
Who, indeed.
Thomas underwent 4½ hours of surgery early Tuesday at Jackson Memorial Hospital to stabilize his spine, which fractured and dislocated a vertebrae known to spinal cord experts as "T-5" -- which essentially means paralysis from the chest down. Thomas has some use of his arms, but it is not yet known to what extent -- he also suffered fractures to the vertebrae in his neck which control the nerves for arm and shoulder movement.
Already, therapists are working with Thomas both to keep his muscles active and decipher just how much damage was done.
The good news is that doctors say Thomas' spinal cord was not severed, but severely bruised -- and how severely is the key. As the swelling around his spine goes down over the next two weeks and the shock to the area wears off, Thomas could experience some return of feeling in his lower body. Many patients with a "T-5" injury have, indeed, walked out of the hospital. Many more, however, are confined to wheelchairs for life.
"Right now, if you let nature take its course, someone with a severe injury with a severance, that person is not going to walk," said Blair Calancie, who has a Ph.D in neurological study at Jackson Memorial Hospital. "And someone with a severe injury with bruising where the bones have shifted dramatically, their chances of walking are very slim."
Right now, doctors say it's a "time will tell" situation.
Far too many people -- like Marc Buoniconti, the son of former all-pro linebacker Nick Buoniconti -- know what Thomas is going through. Marc suffered a far more serious spinal cord injury than a T-5 injury during a football game at The Citadel in 1985.
"I think it was the most frightening time of my life," Marc says. "I made a tackle and the next thing I know I'm watching my arm hit the turf. And if I didn't see it was connected to my shoulder, I wouldn't have known it was my own. I went from being in the best shape of my life to fighting for my life. And that's exactly what Derrick's going through because you don't know what's happening to you."
The Buoniconti family helped found "The Miami Project To Cure Paralysis" soon after Marc's injury and the research center has made great strides in helping to advance the cause to find a cure. Marc is a quadriplegic and moves around by blowing into a valve which operates his wheel chair. Ironically, he was raised in the same area of Miami as Thomas.
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People don't choose to be paralyzed. They need to mourn that loss, that the life I lead will definitely be different, but it still can be full and beautiful. But it takes a long time to go through that whole process. It's sort of like peeling an onion, layer by layer, every day working through what you need to do.
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Kathie Clerk, chief of physical therapy at Jackson Memorial Hospital
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"It hits home," Marc said, "It makes you re-live the experience all over again."
Thomas was scheduled to be moved from the intensive care unit to an intermediate care unit on Thursday, a good five days ahead of schedule. Should he continue to make good progress, he could start in-patient rehabilitation next week.
"The first challenge is just to teach him how to roll around in bed, move around in bed, to reuse the muscles he has left," said Richard Bruha, the physical therapist who will work with Thomas. "We want him to be able to move around independently as much as possible, but it takes time getting used to. Everybody has a different skill level. I'm sure with Derrick Thomas, what he brings to the table is a great work ethic as well as being a skillful individual in moving his body around because of his past profession."
Once in rehab, Thomas will meet with an "educational" director for an hour a day, who will explain procedures and then meet twice daily with Bruha and an occupational therapist, who will teach Thomas how to deal with the day-to-day aspects of life -- such as how to take a shower. He also will meet with a psychologist -- either individually or in groups -- to help deal with the emotional trauma he is surely already experiencing.
"He's going to have denial," Marc says, "He's going to be angry when he realizes that the paralysis may be more permanent than he thought. And there's going to be depression about not having the same body he did before, not having the same lifestyle."
Kathie Clerk, chief of physical therapy at Jackson Memorial, says it's important that Thomas take things day by day.
"People don't choose to be paralyzed," she said. "They need to mourn that loss, that the life I lead will definitely be different, but it still can be full and beautiful. But it takes a long time to go through that whole process. It's sort of like peeling an onion, layer by layer, every day working through what you need to do."
"He needs to draw on the love of his family and friends who are pulling from him," Marc says. "He needs to be as positive and optimistic as possible. I'll be here for him."
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