For Wilmington College junior Tyler Brummett, life changed on July 6, 2015. However, he doesn’t remember the events from that day, events that ultimately led to the end of his football career.
Brummett grew up in West Union and went to the Adams County school through his freshman year.
But he wanted to play football — West Union didn’t offer football — so he transferred to Manchester, a nearby school that allowed him to play a sport he loved.
After graduating from Manchester, Brummett enrolled at Wilmington College to continue his education and football careers.
In the summer following his first year at WC, Brummett was working at the Snappy Tomato Pizza in Seaman. It was a day that started pretty much like any other day.
“I remember making the pizza and getting ready to take it out the door (for a delivery),” he said.
Brummett left work with pizza at his side. At the intersection of Tranquility Pike and state Route 132 in Seaman … WHAM! Brummett’s Oldsmobile was totaled by another vehicle.
“I never remember taking it (pizza) out the door or getting into my car,” said Brummett. “Everything shuts off until I woke up in the hospital. They said I would never remember the actual events of that day or anything.
“They told me I was in my car going down a state highway and as I was crossing traffic, there was two lanes going one way and a little intersection where the guy was supposed to yield to me and as I pulled out he T-boned me. He was speeding, going like 70 when he hit my car. I slid and took out three signs along the highway. In the police report, they said he didn’t show any signs of breaking to avoid me. They said he had to have been distracted, playing with the CD player, texting, something like that. He was in a Suburban. I was in a little Oldsmobile, a little car I had just to get me through high school.
“Our local hospital is just down the road so at first they rushed me to the local hospital and I was unconscious the whole time,” Brummett continued. “Like I said, I don’t remember any of this; just what they’ve told me. They thought since I had a cavity in my chest that one of my lungs had collapsed. So my breathing was kind of slow but my heart was still going and everything. From that point they flew me from the local hospital to UC (hospital) because they had suspected a brain injury and the local hospital wouldn’t do everything they needed to do so they air-cared me to UC. My mom said the flight nurse actually called her while I was on flight and told her that I had died. I had passed away on the flight in the helicopter. My heart rate flat lined and I wasn’t breathing, like I literally died, then a few minutes passed and I started breathing again.”
While Brummett suffered no broken bones, he had a traumatic brain injury. He was in intensive care for nine days and slept nearly the entire time.
Well enough to leave ICU, Brummett was transferred to Drake Rehabilitation Center, where he had to learn how to live all over again.
“They started putting me through some rehab stuff and my parents said they had to teach me how to walk again, how to get dressed, how to eat again. I didn’t even know how to swallow,” said Brummett. “I went nine days without eating (which was) the whole time I was in the ICU. Whenever they had to teach me, they said it was like raising a baby again because I had forgotten how to do everything.”
Even though he progressed through rehab, his memory still didn’t fully return. Brummett said he only remembers the last few days of his three-week stay at Drake.
Waking up with wires attached and his family surrounding him in a hospital left Brummett a bit puzzled.
“I’m lying in the hospital bed with wires all hooked up to me. I felt normal,” said Brummett. “I was like what the (heck) is going on? So I said, ‘Dad what’s going on?’ and he said, ‘You were in a car wreck. How you feeling?’ I said, ‘Wait, I was in a car accident. And my dad pulled up some pictures of my car and I was like, that’s actually my car? I guess I was in a wreck. They were telling me that it happened like a month ago and I had just woke up. I was like wait, I’ve been asleep for a month?”
While nurses informed him that he had multiple visitors, the first memories of visitors were Wilmington College teammates Sterling Clark and P.J. Meyer.
For Meyer, the experience was almost surreal given the fact the two had spent the Fourth of July together.
“I visited him regularly and I don’t think he remembers me being there at all until he went to Drake,” said Meyer. “It was really hard for me to know he doesn’t know I’m there. I’m his teammate, seeing him just a few days ago and then him being in an accident like that. Seeing his mom like that, his friends and family. Like you can’t put yourself in that situation but I just tried to be there for him and be moral support for his mom and stuff.”
Brummett was eventually released and allowed to return home to West Union. His memory started to return as he could recall some inside jokes with his friends. He was able to run plays from the Wilmington College playbook through his head. Even before he was cleared to drive, Brummett was planning his return to the gridiron. One of his doctor’s told him early in the process that playing football was still possible.
So it was back to the weight room for Brummett, who was ready to dispel the notion that it was going to take nearly a year for him to return to full strength.
“I remember telling him (the doctor) specifically, I was kind of being a smart (aleck), you know you don’t know who you’re talking to. I’ll get back faster than (a year). I was like a year? That’s dumb. It won’t take that long. I went to the weight room and I busted my (butt) for probably around 10 weeks and I was back to all my original weight room numbers strength-wise.”
Things were looking up for him and then he went to a brain specialist. She informed him there were two sports she doesn’t clear patients to return to: hockey and football.
“That was probably the toughest part of all of this. You know I’m extremely blessed and lucky to be alive but on the flip side, football and sports had been 20 years of my life,” said Brummett.
It was also back to the business of returning to school to finish his degree in sport management.
“I still wanted to come here,” he said. “I didn’t want to transfer. I had already made it two years and made all my friendships here. So, I decided to stay and stick it out.”
Once he passed the tests – two of them, five hours in length – to determine if he was capable of handling the college setting, his thoughts returned to football.
While he could no longer suit up, there was still a position for him with the Fightin’ Quakers’ football team, according to head coach Stacey Hairston.
“Once it was apparent that he would be healthy enough to return to school to continue his education and knowing that his football career was over, to me he is a part of our family and having him around as a coach almost seems like the next natural step,” Hairston said. “Having Tyler back with us is truly a blessing. Surviving what he has gone through is a miracle by itself. Being in the hospital and fighting for his life is a true testament of never quitting no matter how bleak the situation, and it serves as an excellent example for our players to follow when they get down on themselves and think they cannot do something. When they look at him, it will give them inspiration to fight no matter what.”
So as the football program fights through the 2016 season, they have a real survivor on the coaching staff fighting right along with them.
