TP Emmette for the update on one of my fave players, I was wondering what had happened to him. Could have very nearly had a tragic ending. My heart broke for Aron when I read this:
"The loneliest time in my life was laying in that hospital, going in and out of consciousness, going over my life plan and my goals and just crying," Baynes says, speaking about the ordeal for the first time.
"My uncle Don had an accident 10 years ago. He's a quadriplegic," he says. "My family's had first-hand experience with this going down. I was so scared."
When he was first found in the locker room and roused to consciousness, medics initially thought he'd suffered a concussion. But as time passed, his legs started to tingle. Then he realized he couldn't move his left hand and arm. Still needing to relieve himself, someone brought an empty water bottle. He couldn't go.
"Over about a half hour I really started to deteriorate," Baynes says.
Victory in hand, his teammates came back to the locker room to check on him. Focused on the game, they knew nothing of what happened. He had always been the rugged play-through-pain type. It's the Australian way, and Baynes was the toughest on the team.
"We came into the locker room just wondering where Baynesie was at," Dellavedova says. "He was in a bad way. At first it was like, 'Can he play in the rest of the tournament?' And then we were like, 'Is he going to be OK?'"
Baynes was taken by ambulance to the hospital and immediately put through an array of scans. An MRI showed he had internal bleeding that was putting pressure on his spinal cord.
Anyone who has suffered a debilitating injury and has had to deal with immobility during the recovery process can understand how depressing and scary it is...being unable to do even basic things that you used to take for granted, like stand up on your own or walk on your own. But I was glad to hear this:
He has been going to the beach with his family. It's midsummer in Australia, and he hasn't been home in the summer in years.
This week he attended a Brisbane Bullets-Melbourne United game and watched Dellavedova score 16 points to lead United to the win. Dozens of kids came over to pose with him for photos. He was happy.
"If you saw me now, you wouldn't know anything happened," Baynes says. "There's been a lot of progress in the last six months."
Baynes turned 35 during this ordeal, and his goal is to get back to the NBA next season. He's rehabbing aggressively every day. "He has no off switch, he wants to do it eight hours a day. We try to back him off, but it's not in his nature," Moldovan says.
Get better soon Aron! I hope you make it back, you deserve to.
Topic: The mysterious fall and harrowing story of an NBA center (Read 1765 times)