Dolphins player who lost arm wasn’t wearing seat belt before crash, FHP says
Dolphins and former University of Miami defensive lineman Kendrick Norton wasn’t wearing a seat belt when he started the July 4 car crash that cost him his left arm, Florida Highway Patrol’s long-form crash report says.
FHP released the report Thursday morning.
Norton, 22, remains in Jackson Memorial Hospital. His agent said on Twitter on Wednesday that Norton, whose left arm was amputated soon after the crash, was undergoing another surgery. While the NFL is covering Norton’s medical costs, a
GoFundMe page has been set up to help him after he leaves the hospital.
The crash report says around 1:18 a.m. July 4, Norton was traveling west on State Road 836 (the Dolphin Expressway) and exiting on the northbound ramp to State Road 826 (the Palmetto Expressway) when he “made an improper lane change onto the outside lane of the exit ramp to State Road 826 southbound.”
This caused the driver’s side door of Norton’s Ford F-250 pickup truck to sideswipe the front right side of Jesse Pena’s Maserati.
After contact, the report said, the truck swung across all lanes, hit the concrete barrier on the left side of the roadway, and “overturned onto its right side. (Norton’s truck) came to final rest on its roof facing southwest.”
Neither Norton nor passenger Shakir Williams were wearing their seat belts, according to the report. Williams did not have serious injuries.
Norton chose the University of Miami out of Jacksonville Trinity Christian Academy and started 25 of 26 games as a sophomore and junior. He was voted third-team All-ACC by the conference coaches as a sophomore.
He went into the 2018 NFL Draft and was taken in the seventh round by Carolina.
He spent most of the season on Carolina’s practice squad before the Dolphins signed him in December.