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EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — The dreaded cart. The courtesy clap for the injured.
New York Giants offensive lineman Nick Gates wanted no part of it. He had never needed it before the Thursday night game against Washington in Week 2 of last season.
Not until he heard his left leg go “crack, crack, pop” and started flopping back and forth while he laid on the grass at FedEx Field. The fibula and tibia were broken. There would be seven surgeries to follow, and a rehab that is still in progress.
The injury was so gruesome that NFL Network, which was broadcasting the game, refused to show the replay of Gates’ leg getting caught underneath Washington defensive lineman Daron Payne. The Giants’ training staff and doctors stabilized the leg in an air cast and Gates was taken off the field smiling and waving to signify he was OK.
“I’ll be all right. I’m good,” then-teammate Billy Price remembers Gates telling the Giants. “Now go kick some ass!”
It was a strange reaction given the circumstances and severity of the injury — unless you know Gates.
“I’m good,” Gates recalled telling his mother and brother during a FaceTime call soon after he was taken off the field. “I broke my leg. It snapped in half. But I’ll be good.”
Gates was smiling on that call while his mom, Sonya, was hysterical and his older brother, Matt, was crying for the first time that Nick remembers. It was Gates — pre-pain medication — providing the reassurance for his family as he was being prepared for a trip to Virginia’s Inova Fairfax Hospital with his leg and career in jeopardy.
“That’s exactly what he was saying: ‘Mom, I’m fine. I’m fine. Stop crying,'” Sonya told ESPN. “He was telling his brother, ‘Matt, I’m good. I’m good.'”
When he was in the ambulance, he could feel — and hear — the bones in his injured leg rubbing together.
“‘Hey, you trying to hit every pothole or what?'” he asked the driver with a chuckle.
This is how it was…
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Source : espn
