In sports, gruesome injuries unfortunately happen all of the time. Some end seasons. Others end careers. For Flower Mound High School wide receiver Carson Winters, it was a matter of life and death.
During a routine play in a varsity scrimmage last spring, Winters jumped up in the end zone to catch a touchdown. He was immediately hit by his teammate in the midsection and went down to the turf. Something wasn't right, but the star high school football player didn't know what.
At first, he thought it was a broken rib, according to NBC DFW 5. FMHS Jaguars head coach Brian Basil thought he got the wind knocked out of him. However, the pain was worse than any of that.
Winters was rushed to the emergency room in Dallas, Texas where doctors said he "suffered a deep bruise on his lower intestine."
Suddenly, a normal football play turned into a fight for his life.
As the football player laid in the hospital bed in pain, Winters' small intestine ruptured. And needless to say, this wasn't your typical high school sports injury.
Winters went from healthy and competing in practice to spending 21 days in the hospital, including emergency surgery and 10 days in the ICU. NBC DFW 5 said he lost almost 50 pounds.
"There was a gallon of intestinal fluid that had spilled out into that cavity. So all of that acid, basically, is washing all over his organs and intestines and it's burning everything."
— Mark Winters, Carson's Dad
The Flower Mound community — located north of Dallas and Fort Worth — rallied around Carson Winters, sending him tons of "get well soon" cards and his classmates created bracelets.
After suffering a scare like that, one would think of calling it quits. Not Winters. He worked to get back healthy and made a comeback for his senior season.
Then, in first quarter of Week 1 against Keller Fossil Ridge, quarterback Blake Short found Winters for a 15-yard touchdown.
"It kind of just showed me that really, after all the hard work and stuff, that it's still really possible," Winters told the Dallas Morning News. "It was kind of an awakening moment that anything I put my mind to, and with the great help of others, you can really do amazing things."
No matter the stats he puts up in the box score or how far Flower Mound goes in the state playoffs, Carson Winters, his family, and the entire community will never forget the injury and the fight it took to get back on the football field again.
