re: Tulane player just taken from field on in an ambulance

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The long term possibility of Tulane safety Devon Walker being paralyzed from the neck injury he incurred in today’s game at Tulsa is “unknown” Green Wave team Dr. Greg Stewart said Saturday evening. Walker fractured his cervical spine -- basically a neck break, but did have some feeling in his arms and legs, Stewart said.

“I think it’s unknown,” Stewart said. “We talked to the (team) tonight about it and the reality is you don’t know for 24 to 48 hours. It doesn’t matter how they present. You do that 24-48 hours before you really know what is going on. … That’s what I told the guys is what we know is that we don’t know and anyone who comes out and tells you that they do know – they don’t know. The reality of where we are right now is saying our prayers and sitting and waiting.”

The team and, really the college football nation, is doing just that tonight judging by the mass outpouring of twitter messages about Walker. But there has been a lot of false information reported about what happened this afternoon.

Stewart cleared up some of the conflicting reports up. Walker did not get a tracheotomy as some news outlets reported and he did not have a collapsed lung, Stewart said. CPR was done as a precautionary measure, he said.

“He did not drop a lung,” Stewart said. “Was there CPR done? Did we do chest compressions? Yes. But it was one of those things where once we got him hooked up to the monitor, his blood pressure was low so it was hard to feel the blood pressure and we didn’t have anything – he wasn’t hooked up to an EKG, wasn’t hooked up to an AED. When we first got out there and were dealing with him, we didn’t have any equipment so it’s all about what you can feel through sweat and gloves and all that kind of stuff. So, yes we did (do CPR) because we figured we would rather err on the side on doing compressions when we didn’t need to as opposed to not doing them and wishing we had.”

Stewart said Walker was talking on the field and he and Walker spoke throughout the ambulance ride.

“Yeah (he was talking) and actually (talked) all the way into the emergency room and everything else – he was communicating with us pretty much the whole time and it’s like as I was sitting there and talking him through everything that was going on,” Stewart said. “They put the collar on him so he can’t look around to see what is going on. It’s scary for him too so I was sitting there in his ear telling him what was happening and what was taking place.”
In Stewart’s 26 years of treating Tulane athletes, he said this is the first time he has dealt with a spine injury as it happened on the field.

“You board people but a lot of time you board people thinking they are going to be fine and tonight it was one of those where you didn’t know,” Stewart said. “It certainly drives home (practicing for it). We practice this every year. All of us do, we go through (practice) and it shows you that that’s why you do it. You may only need it once in a lifetime. But you practice it all the time.”

Tulane spokesman Roger Dunaway said Walker’s uncle was in attendance at the game but other members of his family were in route to Tulsa Saturday evening. Football athletic trainer Danny Taylor and Green Wave athletic director Rick Dickson stayed behind with Walker while the team and other members of the medical staff went back to New Orleans with the team.

Stewart talked to the team Saturday evening and updated the players and staff on Walker’s condition. But the waiting game on Walker’s long term prognosis has begun. He will have surgery in the coming days.

“In talking with the neurosurgeon, we were talking about surgery in the next day or two and he was even saying right now, you don’t know,” Stewart said. “When it’s the right time, that’s when we are going to do it.”

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I'll definitely be praying for him

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Garland Gillen ?@garlandgillen
Devon Walker underwent surgery for three hours today. Neurosurgeons stabilized his spine. He's in stable condition.

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