Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130131
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
INJURED PLAYER MEASURES PROGRESS IN SMALL DOSES
In a hospital conference room jammed with photographers and reporters, Dennis Byrd nervously tapped his right foot on the floor.Again . . . again . . . and again.
It was the best thing he could have done for his guests.
Then someone handed him a cup of water and Byrd held it up to his lips with his right hand and sipped. By himself.
It was perhaps the second best thing he could have done.
He shook hands. He waved. He did things he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to do again.
Six weeks ago, Byrd was carried off the field at Giants Stadium, his neck broken from a frightening collision with a New York Jets teammate. Tuesday, he spent an hour talking about how far his faith and medical science have taken him in a difficult, often frustrating rehabilitation.
"The physical therapy is difficult," Byrd said. "If it hurt this much to play football, I probably would have quit a long time ago."
But the triumphs that come in small doses when they come, are his rewards. Wearing a Jets T-shirt and windbreaker, Byrd sat next to his wife, Angela, and talked animatedly about his progress. "I can lift my right leg off the ground," he said. "I can't walk on it, yet. My left leg is behind by a couple of weeks. It's a little slower.
"I was in a waist deep water tank and I stood and supported my own weight. I balanced myself for 15 seconds. It was a big step emotionally. It was sort of like standing on a flagpole because it was hard to get my balance.
"Everything is coming slowly but surely. Each time I work on something and it gets better, that's encouraging."
The first sign of recovery came about a week into Byrd's hospitalization when he was able to twitch his toe. From there, strength has slowly returned to his leg and he now can contract the muscle in his thigh.
Asked if he could move his leg for the television cameras, Byrd grinned and tapped. "I'd tap dance for you, but I don't want to make this a circus show," he said.
Dr. Kristjan Ragnarsson, chairman of the department of rehabilitation medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center, has supervised Byrd's recovery.
"The rate of recovery has been very slow but that is not unexpected with an incomplete spinal cord injury," he said. "He can move his right leg quite well. He has a weak grasp in his right hand. The motion in his left side is not as strong as it is on his right side."
Ragnarsson said he expected Byrd to remain at Mount Sinai for about two more months before moving to a rehab center near his home in Tulsa, Okla.
Byrd and his wife said they had been overwhelmed by the support they have received from the public.
"I certainly don't remember being this good a football player to have this much attention," he said. "The support has been most helpful at night, when I have time to think about it.
"It's an opportunity to count my blessings."
At that point, Byrd's voice began to crack and his eyes welled up. There was a pause. "I want to thank my wife," he began. Then he paused again. "This has been the hardest time of my life . . . and she's been beside me every step of the way."
"Dennis has made progress that doctors have never seen before," Angela Byrd said. "We're going to make it through this. Dennis is going to walk someday. We'll stick together until that time comes and we'll rejoice together when it's over."
Byrd recognizes, however, that he is operating in a dark tunnel where not even his doctors can predict how much movement he will recover and how long it will take. What if, despite his faith and the effort he makes, he is unable to walk again?
"If it doesn't happen, my wife and daughter will love me every bit as much as now," Byrd said. "The things in life that are important really come out. My wife loves me for who I am, not what I am."
He is thinner now, down about 35 pounds from his playing weight of 270. A visitor said he needed to put the weight back on but he won't. "I don't need to be 270 anymore," he said. "I'll be a svelte 230."
Byrd said he harbors no ill feelings toward football. "I still love it. It's part of my life. It's a physical, violent game. That's the way it is. Daryl Stingley, Mike Utley, myself, particularly Utley and myself the last two years, are accidents of coincidence. I ended up unfortunately a statistic."
Utley was paralyzed in the 1991 season when he fell on his head while pass blocking. Stingley was paralyzed in 1978, when he was leveled on a tackle by Jack Tatum.
Byrd said his religious faith has helped him through this crisis.
"The darkest time of my life was the first week after the injury," he said. "I was in a halo brace with tubes coming out of my body. I couldn't move. Jesus Christ was with me more than ever. He gave me strength. It was an opportunity at the time to turn my back or to use the things I've learned all my life. The choice was easy. I read verses. They gave me the strength and courage to continue, to go day to day."
He said he does not wonder why, of all the players who make tackles routinely on Sunday afternoons from July through January, he was the one to be injured.
"I know why it was me," he said. "The strength I have inside, I know I can get through this. I'm glad it was me and not someone else. I'd hate to have it happen to one of my teammates. I'm at peace with what I've got to do.
"It's hard, very much a mental struggle. You make your mind do a lot of things that in football your body did. The things I learned in football I'm applying in a different way. The same things I applied throughout my life as a player, I use now. The goals I work for are lofty, the same as they were in football. I'll attain the goals.
"My struggle, my goal, is to walk again, to hold my children, to function the way I used to, to do sentimental things, to take a walk.
"I'll play football again. I just won't wear pads."