Amazing Medical Miracles

To reconstruct exactly what happened to Kevin, Dr. Oz goes to the scene of the injury to meet with Dr. Andrew Cappuccino—an orthopedic spinal surgeon and a Buffalo Bills team physician. He was one of the first on the field to assess Kevin's condition.

When the team doctors were able to roll Kevin over, Dr. Cappuccino says he saw Kevin's eyes for the first time. "I saw fear. … I have six children of my own, I have four sons, and I'm looking down at this kid, and he's no older than my boys," he says. "My heart sank."

On their way to the hospital, Dr. Cappuccino told Kevin to concentrate on breathing while he started treatment, which included a controversial procedure called "cold therapy." To keep Kevin's spinal cord alive, doctors flushed cold water through his blood in an effort to keep the swelling down.

After getting X-rays at the hospital, Dr. Cappuccino's worst fears were proven. Kevin had suffered a fracture dislocation between the third and fourth cervical vertebrae. "This was a bad spinal problem," Dr. Cappuccino says. "I thought, statistically he was at this point by definition looking at what's called an ASIA B spinal cord injury. Statistically, there's between a 10 and 20 percent that those folks will go on to be able to walk. Not so good."