Paralyzed Frier Released Former Seahawk Lineman’s Main Ambition Is To Walk Again

Mike Frier’s teammates begin training camp next month with the Seattle Seahawks.

“It started for me in January,” Frier said.

Paralyzed below the neck in a Dec. 1 traffic accident, the 300-pound defensive tackle finally got to go home for good Wednesday. He left the University of Washington Medical Center, where he has been rehabilitating since Jan. 18.

“I feel like Mike Tyson getting out of jail,” he said.

When the Seahawks open camp July 16, Frier will be trying to walk again. It may not happen, but Frier is going to do his best.

For the time, he will live with his father, Ulysses, a retired former U.S. Marine Corps master sergeant from Jacksonville, N.C., in an apartment in Redmond, a Seattle suburb.

He will continue with outpatient therapy at the University of Washington. He said he’d like to move back to the South, possibly Atlanta, after his rehabilitation.

“I’ve been struggling, I’ve been working,” he said. “If I get mad about something, I look at my legs and try to make them move again.”

Frier was in the back seat of a car driven by a teammate, running back Lamar Smith. Seahawks star running back Chris Warren was a front-seat passenger.

Neither Smith nor Warren was seriously injured.