Danny Peebles, NC State legend, had his own scary moment in the NFL

As Danny Peebles laid on the artificial turf of the Astrodome, unable to move his arms or legs and barely able to breathe, one thought raced through his head.

“Please don’t die on TV,” he said. “Please don’t die on TV.

“Mama’s watching. My kids are watching.”

Indeed, Peebles’ mother and father, not to mention his wife and two oldest children, were glued to the television on Sunday night, Nov. 17, 1991, when the Cleveland Browns wide receiver and two-time NC State graduate took a helmet-to-helmet hit from Houston’s Bubba McDowell, who himself was knocked unconscious on the play. On video, Peebles’ neck is compressed into his shoulders, a violent injury that caused a fracture in his C3 vertebrae and ended his professional football career.

“Ten seconds earlier, coming out of the huddle, I was a 25-year-old wide receiver in the NFL with a bright future,” Peebles says today. “Then, in one instant, I was on the turf wondering how I was going to provide for my family as a quadriplegic.

“I was wrestling with it the whole time I was on the field. I didn’t know what I would do.”

Medical staff thought the young player was, like McDowell, suffering from a concussion. It wasn’t until a Houston trainer stuck a pin in Peebles’ leg and got no response did they realize that Peebles might be paralyzed. Peebles saw all the blood drain from the faces over him and knew he was in trouble.

They wheeled him off the turf on a gurney, cut his helmet and shoulder pads off him and rushed him to the intensive care unit of the Houston’s Methodist Hospital.

On the same day, Detroit’s Mike Utley suffered a broken spine that left him paralyzed from the neck down, something a paramedic mentioned to Peebles in the ambulance. Peebles, an accomplished receiver and multiple-time track and field All-American for the Wolfpack, saw before and after some of the more frightening moments when other NFL players suffered career-ending and life-threatening injuries during play.

Those were among the thoughts Peebles relived as he and his wife were watching the NFL game between Buffalo and Cincinnati two weeks ago when Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest after being hit in the chest by Bengals receiver Tee Higgins, in what has been described as a freak accident on a relatively routine play.

Hamlin was revived by emergency personnel who administered CPR and other life-saving measures to keep oxygen flowing to his brain. After little more than a week in a Cincinnati hospital, he was moved to a similar facility in Buffalo and then on Wednesday was released. His prognosis for a full recovery is strong.

The circumstances of Peebles’ injury were different, of course. He had been suffering from neck pain prior to the game. He informed the medical staff during warmups and they promised to do X-rays and an MRI when the team returned to Cleveland.

They never got the chance.

Turns out, Peebles had suffered an undetected fractured vertebrae earlier in the season, likely caused by a hereditary narrowing of the spine. It was something that had never been treated before his second injury.

Instead, he found himself being treated by emergency personnel at the game following the dangerous and hard-to-watch collision. He will never forget the care he got from two fellow NC State alums, Cleveland trainer (now with the Baltimore Ravens) Ron Medlin and Houston receiver (and former Wolfpack teammate) Haywood Jeffires.

Medlin stayed with Peebles at the hospital until they returned together to Cleveland, and Jeffires was a constant visitor who lent Peebles an Oilers sweatsuit to wear home because all of Peebles’ travel gear returned home on the team charter flight.

“Those guys took care of me and I will never forget it,” said Peebles, who still lives in Raleigh with his family and is a member of NC State’s Board of Visitors.

Three weeks after he suffered the injury, Peebles was told by team doctors that his football career was over. By then, he was still suffering from tingling fingers and toes but his mobility was restored and the threat of paralysis was over.

When he announced his retirement, Peebles said: “I was lucky. I had good coaching and good advice, and I put academics on an equal level as athletics. Now that the athletics part of it is gone, I’m not left empty-handed. I’ll be able to make a living in the real world.”

Peebles had earned degrees in accounting and business administration before he was ever taken with the fifth pick in the second round of the 1989 NFL draft by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He’s spent more than 30 years working as a financial analyst, Wall Street broker, sports agent and tech-industry salesman.

“Believe it or not, I make more now than I did as a NFL player,” said Peebles, a 2014 inductee into the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame. “There was a time I never thought I would earn another penny for my family.”

There is a postscript to Peebles’ story: Growing up, one of his best friends was fellow speedster Darrin Hines. They both had sons the same age, who grew up to be best friends. Dylan Peebles and Nyheim Hines both attended NC State, the former as a member of the track team, who is now at LSU, and the latter a member of the football and track teams. Hines is now a return specialist and running back for the Buffalo Bills.

Danny Peebles was watching when Hines not only returned the opening touchdown of the Bills’ next game for a 96-yard touchdown, then again later in the game when he scored again on a 101-yard return.

Hines is just the 11th player in NFL history to return two kickoffs for touchdowns in the same game.

Peebles, now 56 years old, has no outwardly showing effects of his spinal injury, other than maybe the shrugging exercises he does to improve his range of motion. There is occasional numbness and tingling. As he said after the injury, and during his year-long recovery, he was fortunate to survive and recover.

And he hopes the same for Hamlin and the dozens of other athletes who suffered similar on-field injuries through the years.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].