Pam Smith distinctly remembers the message that doctors delivered moments after they were done operating on her son, Alex. Another surgery had been required as the Redskins quarterback’s broken leg turned purple from the amount of swelling and developed tar-black blisters on the previous incisions.
He had an infection. And it was bad.
“‘We’re in life-saving mode now and leg-saving mode,’” she was told, “‘But it’s in that order.’”
The fight to save Smith’s leg and his life is at the heart of “Project 11,” the one-hour program from ESPN’s E60 that details Smith’s gruesome 2018 injury and all the complications that came with it.