Zac Etheridge arrived at the East Alabama Medical Center early Saturday afternoon with something to prove — something to relieve the flood of emotions overtaking his parents, who were already stationed next to his hospital bed.

Strapped down to a stretcher, his head and neck stabilized by a number of contraptions, Etheridge knew his horrifically terrifying injury wasn’t the worst-case scenario that would keep him on his back for the rest of his life.

“They were trying to hold me down. ‘You’ve got to be still,’” Etheridge recalled Tuesday. “I was trying to get up because I knew I had that feeling.”

Etheridge was freed for a brief second, got up from his stretcher and walked to the bathroom — quite possibly supplanting his first
days of walking as a toddler as the most memorable steps of his entire life.

“I’m just blessed to be able to walk again,” Etheridge said.

Hours earlier, the only things wiggling on Etheridge’s face-planted body were his toes, the result of tearing ligaments in his neck and cracking his C5 vertebrae after jamming his helmet into teammate Antonio Coleman’s right shoulder pad.

“It scared me a lot,” Etheridge said. “You never know when your last play will be. You never know what’s going to happen in life. If I would have known that play was going to happen, I wouldn’t have been on the field.”

Etheridge was released from a Birmingham-area hospital Monday and was back at the Auburn Athletic Complex on Tuesday. His arrival through the main doors and down into the team’s meeting room was greeted with a standing ovation.

If he were strictly following doctors’ advice, Etheridge would have been resting at home. If it were up to him, he’d have been in pads for Auburn’s late-afternoon practice.

So, he compromised.

“I want the world to know that I’m fine,” Etheridge said. “I can’t stay away from the guys long. If I could, I’d dress out today. I’m just happy to walk again.”

Etheridge wore a bulky, two-piece neck brace, which keeps his head and neck completely upright and stabilized, in his return to Auburn on Tuesday. He will continue wearing it for the next three to four months, he said, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“It’s tough to sleep,” Etheridge said. “It’s just something I have to deal with just to have a chance and try to continue my career.”

Etheridge said one of the first questions he had for doctors was about his future playing career. Even when he didn’t know how long his stay in the hospital would be, Etheridge was itching to get back at safety, where he’s started 33 games and amassed 193 tackles.

Preliminary CAT scans, X-rays and MRIs have him thinking it’s a definite possibility.

“I would love to be able to step back on the field and continue to play the game,” Etheridge said. “But right now we’ve just got to take it one day at a time.”

Etheridge had no trouble recounting the details of what happened immediately after his tackle attempt on Ole Miss’ Rodney Scott went horribly wrong.

The fact that he couldn’t do anything had him the most spooked.

“My body just collapsed,” Etheridge said. “I didn’t have control of it. All I know is that I was lying on the ground and not able to move. I felt my neck. I didn’t think it was serious. I was trying to get up, but I couldn’t.”

The scene was equally scary for Etheridge’s teammates, who screamed to the sidelines when he didn’t budge.

“I was trying to pull him up and then I realized he was just blinking,” linebacker Josh Bynes said.

“He wasn’t moving.”

But Scott didn’t move either, allowing Etheridge to remain completely stable while trainers attended to him.

Scott’s actions have been considered as much of a miracle as Etheridge’s improbable recovery. Etheridge, who spoke with Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt on Tuesday, said he was supposed to talk to Scott on Tuesday, but a class conflict prevented them from connecting.

“Rodney had the presence of mind, as a freshman underneath a pile when we’re coaching all the time, ‘Get up. Get up off the ground. Get back in the huddle,’ not to just shove the guy a little bit and go get back in the huddle,” Nutt said to reporters in Mississippi on Monday.

“If he would have moved,” Etheridge said, “I wouldn’t be here today. I’d still be laying on the hospital bed.”

Etheridge was back to his old self Monday, playing video games with cornerback Walt McFadden at McFadden’s apartment.

“He’s still talking trash. He’s still the same Zac,” McFadden said. “He thinks he’s the best. I let him win last night. I gave him that one. I’m going to give him about two more days.”

Auburn’s defense played one of its more inspirational performances after Etheridge was carted off the field, allowing just one more Rebels’ offensive touchdown in the final three quarters.

After every tackle, Tiger defenders threw four fingers in the air in honor of Etheridge, who wears No. 4.

“When you see one of our head guys go down it’s hurtful,” McFadden said. “He’s doing well now. We feel like we can play in his honor.”

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