Recovering From A Bad Break Bridge Misses Football, But Glad Normal Life Ahead

Kevin Bridge would rather be going to football practice than home after school these days.

Given the alternative, though, Bridge isn’t complaining. Far from it.

Three days before Lakeland High School’s season-opening game, Bridge discovered by accident that he had a broken neck, this four days after playing in a jamboree and going through nearly three weeks of preseason practice with the injury.

In fact, as doctors would discover, it’s not known how long Bridge had the broken neck. He could have had it all the way back to birth.

A day before Lakeland’s first game, Bridge, a senior, had surgery to repair the top vertebrae in his neck. A piece of bone from his right hip was fused in his neck.

Though his football season was over, life as he had known it was salvaged.

After wearing a brace designed to keep his chin in a horizontal position and his neck in a vertical position for three months, Bridge will be able to return to normal activities.

“I feel very thankful; there was definitely somebody watching over me,” he said, smiling easily. “Three months in a brace is great compared to the rest of your life in a wheelchair.”

Bridge will be able to play the sport he loves most in the spring, baseball. It’s a sport he hopes will allow him an opportunity to attend college via a scholarship. The centerfielder hit .423 for Lakeland last spring and .305 for the Prairie American Legion team in the summer.

Had it not been for a truck accident Bridge may not have discovered the broken neck until it was too late.

Bridge and his girlfriend, Angie Tweedy, were in the accident the Monday before Lakeland’s first game. His girlfriend lost control of her truck on a gravel road and hit a tree. Neither was seriously injured.

Out of precaution, though, they went to the hospital for X-rays and were released. The doctor who examined Bridge called the next morning and told Bridge something was wrong.

He went back to the hospital and more X-rays were taken. He was later told that he had a broken neck and should have surgery.

Doctors believed it was an old injury, unrelated to the truck accident, because the broken bone was rounded off, almost polished-like, not splintered or jagged like a fresh break.

He has no idea how he broke his neck.

“I definitely appreciate life more,” Bridge said. “I keep thinking over and over about how lucky I am. I think the wreck was meant to happen.”

Bridge expects to take the brace off for good in early December.

Then the lone evidence Bridge will have of the broken neck will be a 4-inch vertical scar along the trunk of his neck.

“(The doctors said) that where they put the new bone will be the strongest part of my neck,” Bridge said. “I’ll be able to move it side to side. The doctors said I’ll lose 10 to 15 percent of the ability to tilt my head forward and backward. But they said I wouldn’t be able to notice it.”

Bridge wonders if youth who turn out for contact sports for the first time should be required to have their necks X-rayed out of precaution.

The reason Bridge thinks “somebody” was watching out for him is the timing of the discovery of the injury.

“If it had to happen it happened at the right time,” he said, alluding to the fact that he’ll recover in plenty of time to play baseball.

“I miss football a lot. The team’s doing great and the win over Coeur d’Alene is great.

“I’ll never know how I broke my neck. I really want to know, too.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo