Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith told ESPN Saturday that the devastating leg injury he incurred in 2018 could have taken his life.
There have been hints that Smith's injury was more severe than even the horror of a compound fracture, but Smith for the first time opened up on "Outside the Lines" — and the details are terrifying.
"You wake up and you have your wife and family and doctors tell you how close you were [to dying], having gone septic," Smith said. "I didn't know what that meant, didn't know the mortality rate.