In a game against the Cowboys last November, Seahawks receiver Ricardo Lockette suffered a scary neck injury while on punt coverage that required him to be taken off the field on a stretcher. A hit by Dallas’s Jeff Heath left Lockette with a concussion, as well as disk and ligament damage in his neck that required surgery. More than four months later, he continues to wear a neck brace. But during a recent visit with firefighters and paramedics in Redmond, Washington, Lockette said things could have been far worse.
“[The doctors] said if I would have stood up then, the weight of my head – left, right, front, back – I would have died,” Lockette said. “If one of my teammates would have came over and pulled my arm, just barely, I might have died. Or if the returner at the time would have broke a couple tackles, and they would have rolled and fell on me, I would have died on that field. But what saved my life was the trainers, the work that you guys do.”
Here’s the hit that injured Lockette:
Lockette, 29, missed the remainder of the 2015 schedule but expects to play next season.
