TAMPA, Fla. -- By the time Rhonda D'Haiti got to her 16-year-old son D.J. Myers' side on July 25, 2017, he'd been strapped to a stretcher, airlifted to the hospital and was moments away from undergoing a 10-hour surgery. Unable to move from the neck down, he looked up at her and said, "If I can't play football, I'm going to die."
Fast forward one year, and Myers, who is now 17, is in a wheelchair and unable to feel anything below his belly button. Football is out of the question, and he has yet to return to his regular classes at South Lake High School in Groveland, Florida.