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"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." |
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