Local high school football player speaks out after scary hit

SOUTH BEND, Ind. --- A local high school football player is recovering after what fans call a scary hit on Friday night.

Jamon Miller, a sophomore at Clay High School, took a bad during the Clay and Riley High School football game. The tackle caused officials to call the game early, and for Jamon to be taken to the emergency room.

“I was like freaked out,” Miller said. “At first I was like man I can’t move I was crying I didn’t know what to do.”

He said he was running the ball late in the game when a player from Riley took him down by the neck. Miller said he couldn’t move his neck at first and just started praying.

Doctors told his mother, Lori Gordon, Miller suffered from a bad case of whiplash and muscle spasms on the back of his neck. Gordon said parents of other players called her to say Jamon had been taken to the hospital.

“I’m thinking like ‘Oh my gosh’,” Gordon said. “It has to be something really bad.”

Emergency room doctors told Gordon to take Miller to Memorial Sports Medicine Institute the next day to get further tests. Dr. Linda Mansfield from the institute said she, athletic trainers, and coaching staffs all over Michiana take these injuries very seriously.

“We don’t know when we’re out on the field whether that is just a muscle strain or whether that could be a fracture,” Mansfield said.

Miller’s injury, if not treated properly, could be deadly. Mansfield said the Institute’s seen many football related injuries this season and it’s important for players and coaches to know their limits.

“When you’re having pain from an injury your body’s telling you, you need to stop or else we’re going to give out on you,” she said.

Gordon, who has other sons who play football, said she takes every injury seriously and warns other players of this.

“Every injury is serious to me if it’s a bump or bruise don’t take it lightly,” she said.

Mansfield said with playoffs coming up for high school teams, some players might try to play through the pain of injuries gotten earlier in the season.

Beacon Health System will be hosting a Twitter chat on Wednesday starting at 11:30 a.m. focusing on concussions and other football-related injuries. Use #beaconchat on Twitter to ask questions for Mansfield and Dr. Nikhil Patankar, a pediatric intensivist.