After nearly dying, LAFC's Ryan Hollingshead is grateful for his second chance at life
LOS ANGELES — There are mornings Ryan Hollingshead wakes to reminders of the night he almost died.
"At times my neck and my back tighten up a little bit quicker," he said. "I can feel some muscular things and I can feel some mobility things."
Yet every painful tweak and every dull ache is proof that he's still alive, still walking, still playing professional soccer. All of those things were thrown into doubt during an icy winter night when Hollingshead stopped to pull a driver from a wrecked vehicle, only to be struck by another car.
First responders did not know Hollingshead had broken three vertebrae, but he had no feeling in his arms so he was fitted with a neck brace and strapped to a body board; the slightest movement, he was told, . Doctors initially wanted to fuse the bones in his neck together, which was the safe move. But the team physician for , the team Hollingshead played for, suggested
