"Lost in the dark with a busted knee"

http://www.greenwichtime.com/sports/...ies-474812.php

Phillips recovers from mountain bike injuries

ALYSSA SCHNUGG, Oxford Eagle

Published: 08:54 a.m., Wednesday, May 5, 2010

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) * Lost in the dark with a busted knee, Wesley
Phillips, sat in the woods for about five hours before being rescued.

His first thought?

"Football," said the Ole Miss Rebels long snapper. "Then I thought how
was I going to tell my mom without upsetting her."

On April 10, Phillips and his buddy, Joe Woolsey, took their bikes on
the railroad-bed trails. The two went off the main trail and started
biking through the narrow dirt trails in the woods. At about 6:30
p.m., Phillips lost control of his mountain bike while riding down a
hill.

"I was going maybe 25 miles per hour," he said. "I went over a small
ramp and was fixin' to hit a tree head-on so I jumped off my bike."

A he flew through the air, Phillips' head missed the tree, but his
right leg slammed into the trunk.

"My shin and ankle kind of bent around the tree," he said.

After attempting to use his bike as a crutch failed, Phillips tried
walking by leaning on Woolsey, which wasn't working either.

"We got to the top of a hill and I heard a 'pop' and my knee gave
out," Phillips said. "I sat down and told Joe I wasn't going to make
it."

Phillips called 911 at about 7:30 p.m.

"They were talking to me and making sure I wasn't in shock," he
recalled. "They were trying to figure out where I was."

Woolsey left his friend and attempted to walk to where the two had
started out to meet the paramedics and police officers, but they had
arrived faster than Woolsey could make it out and began searching the
woods.

"It was a pretty big ordeal to find him," Oxford Police Chief Mike
Martin said. "We couldn't get in there on anything other than foot
because it was so dark. It's such a maze out there."

The University of Mississippi Police Department sent out officers on
dirt bikes to help with the search. It was Officer Gery Phillips who
first found Phillips.

"I remembered his name because we had the same last name," Phillips
said. "I could hear the bike and I started yelling. He finally found
me and on his way down the hill towards me he twisted his ankle and
hurt his knee. We were there for about 30 minutes before the two more
officers and an EMS guy found us."

Officer Phillips is still on leave due to his knee injury, UPD Chief
Calvin Sellers said.

Another UPD officer, Lt. Bishop Lewis, hurt his back while searching
for Phillips, but he has returned to work, Sellers said.

One of the police officers offered Phillips his jacket and another
wrapped his shirt around Phillips' legs.

"They were concerned about me getting too cold," he said. "I had been
sweating and it was getting cold out."

Once Phillips was found, getting him out of the woods was the biggest
obstacle.

Eventually about 10 people were with Phillips, including Woolsey and
his brother Zach, who had come out to help in the search. The men took
turns carrying the 220-pound Phillips more than 2 miles through the
dark woods.

"It was rough," Martin said. "They had him strapped to a backboard and
they had to carry him up hills and across ditches. It was a pretty big
production."

Phillips said he remembers feeling bad for his rescuers who had to
carry him out of the woods.

"I'm not a small guy," he said. "They had a hard time carrying me all
that way. I felt so bad, but so blessed."

After getting back onto the main trail, Phillips was lifted onto the
back of a police vehicle. Driving the car very slowly, the others held
onto the backboard to make sure Phillips didn't slide off the back of
the trunk.

Finally, at about 11:30 p.m., Phillips was loaded into the back of an
ambulance and on his way to Baptist Memorial Hospital-North
Mississippi.

There, doctors discovered Phillips had torn his anterior cruciate
ligament and had two tears in his meniscus. He recently had surgery
where cadaver tissue was used to replace the ligament.

Phillips, who will be a senior at Ole Miss in the fall, was hoping to
be the first-string long snapper for the Rebels where he's been second
string behind Preston Powers for three years.

"This upcoming season I was hoping to get that position," he said.
"But now it looks like I might not be able to play at all."

Doctors and rehabilitation therapists have told Phillips the best case
scenario is he could possibly get back on the field in September.

"I feel good," he said. "I think I can make it. I think I can be ready
by September. Being a long snapper, I generally just snap the ball and
run straight down field. I'm hoping I can wear a knee brace and just
deal with it hurting a little."

Despite the possibility of his Ole Miss football career taking a hard
hit, Phillips remains positive and optimistic but mostly, he's
thankful.

"I just want to express my thanks to the police and paramedics," he
said. "There's no way I could have made it out of there if they didn't
help."