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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Ryan Shazier was seriously injured in an NFL game. He has advice for Damar Hamlin
Buffalo2 Bills safety Damar Hamlin was discharged from a New York hospital on Wednesday, more than a week after suffering cardiac arrest during a game, to continue his rehabilitation3 at home.
Hamlin's doctors said he's on what's considered a "very normal" or even "accelerated trajectory4" in his recovery, and has been walking, eating and undergoing therapy. It's not exactly clear what the road ahead will look like — but former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Ryan Shazier has an idea.
Shazier was making a routine tackle in a 2017 game when he sustained a life-altering spinal5 cord injury that left him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. He underwent spinal stabilization6 surgery, but even then, the prognosis was grim. Doctors gave him only a 20% chance of ever walking again.
While Shazier and Hamlin experienced vastly different injuries, their experiences have much in common: They both happened during a nationally televised Monday night football game, against the Cincinnati Bengals and even on the same field. And both players have fought to get back on their feet.
Shazier says he "pretty much had to relearn everything" one step at a time, from wiggling a toe to raising a knee, and those little victories kept him going.
"It was almost like receiving a scholarship to go to college. It was like going to Ohio State. It was like getting drafted in the first round," Shazier told Morning Edition. "These are things that people said I would never do and I was able to do them. And it was just an amazing feeling to be able to continue to progress."
Shazier's biggest moment of joy during his recovery came when he was able to do what he set out to from the start of his rehab: walk his wife down the aisle9 and dance at their wedding.
Shazier was on the path to possibly playing football again, but began to realize he couldn't move as fast or give as much as he would have wanted as a professional athlete. He announced his retirement10 from football in 2020, but still keeps up with the sport (he also launched a podcast series about sports comeback stories).
Shazier and his wife were watching the Jan. 2 game when Hamlin collapsed11 on the field, which Shazier called "a very tough moment for me."
"And just to see just the scare in everybody's eyes while they're on the field, to me it just kind of gave me flashbacks of what I went through," he said. "But then also it just scared me to see what Damar, his family and the Buffalo Bills were going to have to go through, dealing12 with his injury."
Shazier spoke13 with Morning Edition's A Martínez about his own injury and recovery, and what advice he would offer Hamlin now.
On how his injury happened
I made this tackle a thousand times before, and on this tackle there was a receiver doing a drag race ... and unfortunately, he was running a little bit faster than I thought he was. And when I made a tackle, my head hit his hip8, which caused me to fracture multiple vertebrae in my back and it caused me to have a spinal cord injury. ...
... I definitely knew something was wrong because I had a burning sensation in my back. ... You have misfortunes, but you just never expect that, hey, I'm going to get hurt to the extent where I would never be able to walk again. And when I got hurt, it was more of, "Oh, man, I'm hurt pretty bad, but I should be OK." And that wasn't the case.
On making incremental14 progress during a long recovery
My whole life I've been doubted, trying to make it into the NFL .... not even 1% of guys in the NFL make it to the Pro7 Bowl. So with me being blessed to overcome all those odds15, I just thought about the same thing when it came to just dealing with my injury and how I had to deal with so many other injuries before, and it's just one step at a time. ... And that's what I call goals: just first downs, just short first downs. And then when you reach your ultimate goal, there's a touchdown. So every time I did something that was relatively16 good to me, not what everybody else thought, but what I felt was progress, I would call it a first down. And I just started looking more at the short-term goals and would try to build those, and they end up building into me being able to be where I'm at now.
On feeling like his retirement was letting people down
I remember I talked to my father and my mother and my wife and I was like "Man, I'm a failure. I'm sorry I let you guys down." And they looked at me and said, "Ryan, what are you talking about?" And I said, "I got hurt. I'm not able to play football at a high level." And my wife and my father and my mother all told me, "Ryan, playing football is a bonus. Being the man that you are is what we appreciate, what we love about you, not just because you can play football, you're not letting us down. The fact that you're overcoming this injury, the way you're overcoming it, we look up to you more than we ever did." ... One of my goals was to make it to the Hall of Fame. ... I thought that if I didn't reach the goal that I plan on reaching, I was a failure. But my family told me very quickly that that was not the case.
On the memories Hamlin's injuries brought back
It was just the pain I went through, the loss of the game that I went through, the emotions of just how I feel about football then, how I feel about football now, just about how his family is scared and they don't know how to react, they don't know what to do ... I was thinking about how my teammates looked when I was on the field. I was thinking about being at a hospital and I had so many doctors around me that I couldn't even see the wall. It was so many things that literally17 flashed by so fast that I can't even tell you just one thing.
On what he wants Hamlin to know
The biggest thing I will always tell anybody, first and foremost, is trust God and then also just have a positive mindset. ... And secondly18, take it slow, because you just want to make sure that you're in the best condition for your health. You want to make sure that you're still able to be the guy that you want to be. So if it involves football, if it doesn't involve football, just take your time. Just make sure that you trust the doctors and ... You also have to trust yourself. You know what your body feels like. And push it as far as you can push it, but also understand when it's time to pull back as well.
1 transcript | |
n.抄本,誊本,副本,肄业证书 | |
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2 buffalo | |
n.(北美)野牛;(亚洲)水牛 | |
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3 rehabilitation | |
n.康复,悔过自新,修复,复兴,复职,复位 | |
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4 trajectory | |
n.弹道,轨道 | |
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5 spinal | |
adj.针的,尖刺的,尖刺状突起的;adj.脊骨的,脊髓的 | |
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6 Stabilization | |
稳定化 | |
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7 pro | |
n.赞成,赞成的意见,赞成者 | |
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8 hip | |
n.臀部,髋;屋脊 | |
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9 aisle | |
n.(教堂、教室、戏院等里的)过道,通道 | |
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10 retirement | |
n.退休,退职 | |
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11 collapsed | |
adj.倒塌的 | |
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12 dealing | |
n.经商方法,待人态度 | |
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13 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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14 incremental | |
adj.增加的 | |
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15 odds | |
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别 | |
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16 relatively | |
adv.比较...地,相对地 | |
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17 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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18 secondly | |
adv.第二,其次 | |
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