Tebow, in the thick of leading his team during a hotly contested game with the University of Kentucky, had his legion of followers on the edges of their collective seats on Saturday night when he crumpled to the turf with an injury and had to be helped off the field.
Earlier in the day, it was reported that Tebow and several other players flew to Kentucky, on a separate plane because of an undisclosed respiratory illness and the fear of exposing the rest of the team to the ailment. Later, following his release from the UK Medical Center, it was learned that Tebow did not have the flu, as was thought earlier, but full-blown tuberculosis and somewhere over GA, he lapsed into a coma and his condition was downgraded to critical.
By the time the plane landed at the Lexington, KY, airport, the acute emergency care team dispatched to rush the young football star to the hospital, found Tebow had regained consciousness and appeared alert, actually editing and correcting the spelling of the game plan given to him by Coach Urban Meyer. He brushed off the UK doctors and said, "Excuse me, folks, I'm here to win a football game for my school and my fans," sprinting off in the direction of UK's Commonwealth Stadium.
As is his custom, Tebow played brilliantly for the first half of the game. Then, with less than four minutes remaining in the third quarter of the game and the Florida eleven leading by a scant 31 to 7 margin, Tebow was dealt a vicious blow by UK defensive end, Taylor Wyndham, who is reported to be on some sort of work release from a Kentucky prison, where he was serving time for murder, assault with a deadly helmet and overdue library fines.
Tebow lay motionless on the field. Trainers, doctors, head trauma specialists and a full ER team huddled around the athlete. While the partisan crowd, clad mostly in UK blue, except for the obligatory fat kids not wearing shirts, softly began to sing "Kumbaya" while they laced arms and slowly swayed back and forth, a priest was solemnly ushered onto the field to administer last rites to the fallen star.
Suddenly, bathed in a piercing beam of light, Tebow sat upright and signalled to the hushed crowd that he was OK with a jaunty 'thumbs up.' He was carried off the field and taken by ambulance to the University of Kentucky Medical Center. Doctors there quickly discounted
Coach Meyers assumption that it was a concussion, stating that when Tebow arrived at the hospital, he was suffering from a broken neck, a collapsed lung, internal bleeding from a ruptured aorta, a size 13 football shoe lodged in his left temporal lobe and a nasty brushburn on his right shin.
The medical staff, sensing the hopelessness of it all, tried to make their young patient comfortable, realizing that his imminent demise was certain and returned to watch the end of the game on the television in the doctor's lounge.
Sometime during the middle of the night, several nurses and staff said they witnessed a shadowy figure enter Tebow's room. When they went to investigate, there was no one there......except for the broken athlete, now bathed in an orange and blue aura, levitating above his hospital bed. Somewhere down the hall, trumpets sounded and Tebow spoke to the assembled staff, "My boys won didn't they? I didn't let my team down, did I?"
Scenes of the supernatural played out all over Gator Nation last night, while the faithful kept vigil for their star quarterback. Uber-fan Chris Seal in South Florida told CNN this morning that she, her husband and 4-year old daughter, all dressed in their matching lucky Gator pajamas, were watching the game when the injury occurred. "Naturally, we were all grief-stricken and in shock, " she related.
"Of course, none of us could sleep that night, waiting for word about Tebow. Sometime around 3:00 AM, our daughter went to the kitchen for a drink. When I went to check on her, I noticed her sitting at the table, tears streaming down her face."
"Oh, honey," I said, "Uncle Timmy will be all better, you'll see. Our daughter calls him 'Uncle Timmy' because we've taught her that we're all one big Gator Nation family."
"I know, Mommy," she replied. "Look, I spilled some orange juice while I was pouring it into my Big-Girl Gator cup and the puddle looks like UNCLE TIMMY. I just know he'll be alright, Mommy........"
News reporters from all major media outlets were streaming to the Seal house today from Pittsburgh, where they had been covering the G-20 summit. Said one hardened beat reporter, "I guess I've seen just about every rotten, disgusting and depraved thing wrong with this crazy world and brought it into America's living room right at dinnertime. And just when I was about to give up hope that there would ever be anything good again to report, this story shows that one little girl's faith in one media-blitzed, over-hyped, bigger-than-life college quarterback can make everything right in the world again, even if just for one night."
The Vatican, originally believing that Michelangelo's hallowed artwork that has adorned the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome for centuries had been somehow vandalized, has now dispatched their Congregation for the Causes of Saints team of investigators to determine if this was, indeed, a miracle, instead of just another college prank.
I heard that the hot dog vendor's trays never emptied that day.
ReplyDeleteYea, verily.
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