SAGINAW, MI (WNEM) -
A local Michigan State Spartan is recovering after undergoing surgery for a broken neck.
The incident happened over the weekend while Pinconning native Steve Moore was boating on the Saginaw Bay. The football player dove into the water and landed headfirst on a sandbar.
"[I] knew something was wrong," said Number 51, the junior long snapper for MSU's football team.
Moore had just hit his head after diving off a boat in the Saginaw Bay. He was able to get out of the water, thinking he only had a sprained neck, but the pain lingered.
From his hospital room, with his voice still weak from the pain, he opened up to TV5 about the ordeal.
"I knew something was more serious because the pain didn't subside and so it became increasingly more difficult to do certain things," explained Moore.
What's so amazing about Moore's injury is that he waited until the next day to go to the hospital. So understandably, he says he's very lucky to be walking at all. "I actually had a bone chip floating around in there too so that was near the spinal cord, so I'm lucky in that sense that I didn't move it in a certain way," said Moore.
Moore also credits his vigorous workout regimen with preventing an even more harmful injury.
"I attribute a lot of that to the strength conditioning we do for necks at Michigan State. We do a lot of it and I think that's really the one thing that saved me," explained Moore.
Doctors at Covenant Hospital performed an hour-long procedure to repair his neck.
Now, he still has lots of torn ligaments and faces months of recovery before he can even entertain the idea of returning to the football field.
"I'm thankful - I could have ended up in a wheelchair," Moore said. "I could be dead for all I know and so I'm kind of counting my blessings that I'm still able to walk and talk - barely talk - but walk and talk, you know, I'm still alive today."
The Moore family would also like to express their thanks for everyone who took the time to wish Steve well and offer their support.
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Steve Moore
