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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Kudos to Haynesville officials

There was a very scary moment at the Haynesville-North DeSoto game.

At the end of the third quarter, North DeSoto's Cody Lockwood ran a sweep toward the North DeSoto sidelines, was caught in a crowd of tacklers and apparently hit his head on a pole or obstruction of some kind when he ran out of bounds.

Lockwood didn't get up. A stretcher was rolled out on the field, Lockwood was immobilized by medical personnel and taken to Homer Memorial hospital in an ambulance. The whole process -- very carefully done -- took about 15 minutes.

After the game, North DeSoto coach Jerry Byrd said Lockwood had feeling in his fingers and toes, always a good sign. I went by Homer Memorial after filing my game story and asked if I could speak to any members of Cody's family. I was told they were already gone, and he had been treated and released. They weren't able to give out Cody's name but he was the only player taken by ambulance from the game to Homer.

It was definitely a relief to me.

Many years ago, Times sports editor Scott Ferrell, who was then working for the Shreveport Journal, and I were covering a Green Oaks-Southwood game at Northwood Stadium. We were covering the game from the field because there was no room in the press box. There was a collision directly in front of us at midfield. Southwood defensive back Willie Burns didn't get up. He was paralyzed from the neck down.

Scott and I never want to see something like that again.

Thankfully, Lockwood's story apparently will have a happier ending. Injuries are part of football at all levels, even catastrophic ones, unfortunately. We've been lucky here since the Burns' injury in the 1980s. It looks like we've been lucky again.

The quick action of the medical personnel at Haynesville deserves praise, too.

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