Lacrosse player returns to field nine months after breaking neck

HOPEDALE, Mass — Brian Cerow, a Hopedale High School senior, broke his neck in the first game of his football season back in September.

He was taken to the hospital and told that he would never play football again, or even walk.

Now, less than nine months later, he is back on the field as the captain of his school's lacrosse team.

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"Wheres the limit you know? What is the end? Why not just keep pushing for it? Cerow said.  "I'm out here trying to get some hardware, you know?"

Cerow did the math after being injured, and figured out that if he put in the work, he could finish out his senior year on the lacrosse team.

No surgery was needed, but he was confined to a brace that kept his chin in an upright position for three months. He then did countless hours of physical therapy and completed his goal.

Even Cerow was surprised by his recovery.

"The mental strength that it needed to take. Not being able to walk for a little bit, not being able to go around and just having my body deteriorate in front of my eyes, Cerow said. "Being able to take myself from that point and build up to where I am was truly one of the hardest things of my life."

His coaches couldn't believe what they saw when his doctor's note said he was cleared to play.

"He is like nothing I've ever experienced," Hopedale lacrosse head coach Eric Moxim said. "He had three clear breaks in the vertebrae that should have either killed him or paralyzed him, and probably also put him on a ventilator."

The team beat Holliston in the Division 3 Central/East quarterfinals, and will advance to play Dover-Sherborn in the semifinals.

Cox Media Group