A 15-year-old Arlington Lamar High School student seriously injured Saturday in a freak accident playing touch football is eating steak in the hospital and has been transferred out of intensive care.
Brett Green Jr., a freshman, was playing seven-on-seven football at a tournament in Bedford when he and a teammate collided during a play. Green’s head smashed into the other player’s shoulder.
"Freak accident," said his father Brett Green Sr. "Probably never happens. But all it takes is just one time."
Coach Jim Poynter watched in horror.
"Immediately it was apparent that this was not just 'wind knocked out of you kind of thing,'" Poynter said. "I mean we could hear the collision on the sideline. So we ran out there."
They called 911. His father met the ambulance at JPS Hospital.
"The doctor said some people with this injury don't even make it to the hospital," the father said.
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Green Jr. was unconscious. Tests showed he had bleeding on the brain.
"The prognosis when you're not moving at all, he hadn't regained consciousness in the first 10 or 12 hours, was kind of bleak," Poynter said.
In those first hours Saturday, nobody knew if Green Jr. would survive, let alone walk or talk again.
Then came Sunday morning.
Suddenly, it seemed, he came back to life.
And even smiled.
"Oh that was a relief," Green Sr. said. "Not only could he open his eyes, he could mumble some things."
The coach said he's amazed at Green Jr.'s progress.
"It's nothing short of a miracle,” Poynter said. "By that evening, he ate some solid food."
The next day, Memorial Day, Green Jr. ate a steak dinner that his friends brought to him.
"That's when I said, yeah, this will be alright," his father said. "Eat steak!"
Green also plays the violin and is learning the piano. He's on the honor roll at Lamar High School.
"Whatever he wants to do, he can do, and be one of the best at it," his father said.
His family is raising money for his medical expenses on this GoFundMe page.
