When Sequatchie County opened its football season two weeks ago, Sam Montgomery paused and looked around. He saw the Indians and York Institute warming up, and when he turned he saw his sons in the stands, and he shook with emotion as tears rolled down his cheek.
“Being out there, seeing my sons in the stands — it was an answered prayer,” the Sequatchie assistant coach said.
There were days last March when Montgomery was touch and go after falling from a full-galloping mule when a girth strap broke.
His collarbone broke in four places, but that was a relatively easy fix. He had nine ribs broken — off the spine — and four of those punctured a lung. He had multiple bruising of almost every internal organ.
He remembers a trauma surgeon telling him upon his arrival at the hospital he had two hours to live; that same doctor later told him that his body had begun to shut down. He was rushed to Erlanger hospital, where physicians performed a surgical procedure they’d done only a couple of times previously.