While watching Auburn score 51 points on Ole Miss yesterday, ESPN played a story at halftime about how Auburn safety, Zac Etheridge, has become close friends with Old Miss' Rodney Scott. While their teams were playing eachother last year, Etheridge went to tackle Scott, and ended up breaking a vertabrae in his back, and bleeding around his C2 vertebrae which is at the base of the head/beginning of the neck. Etheridge was temporarily paralyzed, and ended up landing on Scott right after his injury. Scott, a vicious player who is full of energy, somehow knew something was wrong and decided to lay there and not move while Etheridge was lying on top of him. There are pictures and videos of Scott laying on his back with Etheridge on top of him, hands up in the air and not knowing what to do. The important part of this story is that Scott in fact saved Etheridge's life by not moving. With broken vertebrae and blood leaking out into his head/neck area, any movement would have likely killed Etheridge. Somehow, Etheridge slowly gained feeling before leaving the field immobilized on a stretcher, and was able to give a thumbs-up to the crowd. He underwent immediate surgery, and was moving around again three days later with a large neck/back brace for support. He and his mother called Scott days later and thanked Scott for saving his life. The two football players became great friends, as well as their families, and were both on the field yesterday, one year after the incident, playing as hard as ever. The two met for the first time in person after the game. Scott is a hero in this situation; if he acted like every other football player and would have thrown Etheridge's lifeless body off him after the awful tackle, Etheridge would not likely be here today.
In the picture shown above, you can see Etheridge, motionless, lying on top of Rodney Scott, while Scott puts his arms up out of concern and panic for Etheridge.
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