20 years ago, Taliaferro’s return ‘truly special’
Wayne Sebastianelli had been with Adam Taliaferro from the moment he fell awkwardly to the field at Ohio Stadium and couldn’t get up.
Sebastianelli, the Penn State football team doctor then and now, stayed with Taliaferro in Columbus, Ohio, until his father arrived the following day. He visited him often at Magee Rehabilitation Hospital, first when he couldn’t move his arms and legs and then after he began his miraculous recovery.
So Sebastianelli was a bit apprehensive almost a year later when Taliaferro warned
him about what might happen on the night of Sept. 1, 2001.
“I remember him goofing around a couple days before that night and saying he was going to run out of the tunnel and onto the field,” Sebastianelli recalled. “He’d pop in every now and then into the office and tell us that. I’d say, ‘Be careful.’ He was just going to do it.”
Less than 12 months after suffering a severe spinal cord injury at Ohio State, Taliaferro thrilled the record crowd of 109,313 at newly expanded Beaver Stadium and a prime time television audience when he led the Nittany Lions onto the field before their season opener against Miami
(Fla.).
On that night 20 years ago, he wore his blue No. 43 jersey, waved to the roaring crowd as he waited to be introduced, walked onto the field and surprised everyone with a hop, skip and jog.
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Taliaferro said. “We were in the locker room and I felt like I was a player all over again. I had that nervous feeling I’d get before every game. Doc Sebastianelli came up to me at my locker and asked if I was OK.
“He said, ‘Adam, whatever you do, people are going to appreciate it.’ I went out there and this peace just came over me.”
It was very unlike how Taliaferro had felt a year earlier, Sept. 23, 2000, as a freshman cornerback. He tackled Ohio State running back Jerry Westbrooks
late in Penn State’s lopsided loss. He tried to use his arms to pull himself up and couldn’t. Then he tried to stand using his legs and couldn’t. He couldn’t feel his arms or his legs.
“The thought of being paralyzed never went through my head,” he said. “I remember Bhawoh Jue, our other corner, saying, ‘Adam, c’mon, get up!’ I remember him reaching down toward me and I started panicking because I couldn’t move anything.
“I remember looking up and seeing Doc Sebastianelli and Coach (Joe) Paterno. As time went on I started to panic. I remember telling Doc, ‘I can’t move! I can’t move!’ From that point it kind of got blurry.”
Sebastianelli, trainer George Salvaterra and other medical staffers from Penn State and Ohio State
carefully placed him on a stretcher. Dr. Chris Kaeding, Ohio State’s orthopedic surgeon, helped stabilize Taliaferro, who received a steroid injection about an hour after the injury to reduce swelling. The following day, neurosurgeon Dr. Gary Rea performed a twohour spinal fusion surgery on him at the Ohio State Medical Center.
After four days there, Taliaferro was flown to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, near his home in Voorhees, N.J. He slowly began to progress and was moved in early October to the Magee Rehabilitation Center a few blocks away.
“About four or five days into my stay at Magee, my dad (Andre) rolled me up to the rooftop so I could get some fresh air,” he said. “Two guys were playing basketball and I broke
down. That was the first time it hit me that I was disabled. I realized I was broken. My body didn’t work anymore.
“That was the first time I cried. My dad said, ‘Get it all out. We were waiting for you to have this moment.’ That was probably one of my lowest points.”
He was told he had a 3% chance of walking again. About three weeks later, however, the turning point in his recovery happened. After his mother, Addie, and his father had gone home one night, one of his nurses looked at the end of his bed and noticed he was moving his toe.
“She asked me to do it again and I did,” Taliaferro recalled. “It was about 10:30 or 11 at night and she called my dad. He drove back to see it for himself. We had a celebration in the hospital room that night.
“He called Coach Paterno and some of my teammates to finally tell them good news. It was probably one of the best moments of my life.”
Andre Taliaferro also called Sebastianelli well after 1 a.m. and screamed the news to him.
“I still feel chills when I think about that call,” Sebastianelli said. “I knew then that he was going to be able to walk. He was the miracle. He just took off after that. It was meteoric.”
Adam Taliaferro walked out of Magee on crutches in January 2001, underwent therapy there as an outpatient for four hours every weekday until April and returned to Penn State as a student in May. He still expected to play football again and fulfill his childhood dream of playing in the NFL.