Carolina Panthers RB Christian McCaffrey experienced a very scary situation this past weekend and he took to Panthers.com to talk about it:
It was a beautiful Colorado Saturday, as Christian McCaffrey described it.
“We were going to go to lunch,” McCaffrey recalled Tuesday in a phone interview, “and then just randomly we were like, ‘Let’s go hike the rock.’”
McCaffrey – along with his brothers Dylan and Max and friends Michael Mann and Brooke Pettet went to Castle Rock. They were making their way to the top when they turned a corner and saw something that will stay with them forever.
Eli Smoker was hiking with his grandfather, Dan Smoker, Sr.
Then the 72-year-old fell – about 20 feet onto a rock.
“It felt like he was in the air for 10 seconds,” Christian McCaffrey said. “I had never seen anything quite like that in my life as far as the trauma and the sound. We were in shock.”
McCaffrey called 9-1-1. Mann and a fellow onlooker named Chris tended to Smoker, who was suffering greatly from the devastating fall. Chris kept his head still and Mann performed chest compressions when Smoker’s breathing stopped.
“Everybody stepped up,” McCaffrey said. “I called 9-1-1, and it felt like an eternity. It felt like we were up there waiting for four hours. But I looked back at my call log and it took 11 minutes before the paramedics came. Amazing what those guys did.”
“I don’t know what would have happened,” McCaffrey said. “We were lucky to be at the right place at the right time.”
Michael Mann, @run__cmc and @notoriousmax25 are great football players, but even better humans. Yesterday, they helped save my dads life after he fell off of Castle Rock. They comforted my son when he was alone. Then showed up at the hospital to check in. @AdamSchefter @espn pic.twitter.com/MVAdbr2gYV
— Dan Smoker (@dsmokexu) March 4, 2018
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