Lions Linebacker Knocked Out Brown Suffers Bruised Spine On Hit That Leaves Him Unconscious

Detroit linebacker Reggie Brown was knocked unconscious and needed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the field after bruising his spine in a collision in the Jets-Lions game Sunday.

Brown, who was taken off the field in an ambulance, later regained consciousness and was able to move his arms and legs, team physician Dr. Robert Collon said.

He added that Brown appears to have bruised his spine at the neck and that a CAT scan showed no fractures. Brown, 23, was to have more tests.

Players said Brown needed resuscitation and that trainers cut his shoulder pads off. Reporters on the field said medics also put a tube down Brown’s throat, apparently to help him breathe.

Lions general manager Chuck Schmidt said he didn’t know if Brown ever stopped breathing.

“I know they had concerns about his breathing and they took steps to correct that,” he said.

Coach Bobby Ross said he was encouraged that Brown was at least conscious and able to move.

“We still aren’t out of the woods yet, but the news is better,” he said. “We are still praying very hard for him, and asking for everyone else to do the same.”

Brown was assisting in a tackle on running back Adrian Murrell in the fourth quarter when Lamont Burns, a Jets lineman, fell backward and hit Brown in the head.

Brown fell to the turf, and his teammates almost immediately began waving for help. Center Kevin Glover and wide receiver Johnnie Morton ran off the field and came back rolling a stretcher to Brown’s side. Herman Moore and Tommie Boyd then sprinted off the field to summon an ambulance.

Moore called Brown’s injury a “nightmare.”

“When you come to play a football game, you are thinking about who is going to win between the Lions and the Jets, not about seeing someone needing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the field,” he said. “It was really hard to focus on the game again, and not think about Reggie’s family and his loved ones.”

Players on both teams prayed as Brown was treated, and as he was about to be carried off, each team huddled in prayer. Some players had tears in their eyes.

“My feelings about the game are really insignificant compared to the feelings for the young man that was injured,” said Jets coach Bill Parcells, whose team lost 13-10 and was kept out of the playoffs. “My prayers are with him, as well as my team’s. This is one of the second or third incidents that I have been around, and they don’t get any easier.”

Play resumed after a 17-minute delay.

Glover said Brown’s injury reminded him of when Lions lineman Mike Utley was paralyzed during a game on Nov. 17, 1991, against the then-Los Angeles Rams.

“I was very close to the Mike Utley situation, and was right there when it happened, but this went well beyond that,” he said. “We are football players, not doctors, so it was very frustrating to not understand what was going on. We were just trying to hurry up and get Reggie all of the care that he needed.”