USC football: Stafon Johnson awake and alert
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USC tailback Stafon Johnson is communicating non-verbally with his mother and several teammates at the hospital where he underwent lengthy surgery last night after a weight-room accident.
Doctors have also begun to remove some of the medical equipment that Johnson had been hooked up to, Coach Pete Carroll said.
‘That’s good news,’ Carroll said during a teleconference this morning. ‘He’s doing well.’
Johnson was starting his bench-press lifts on Monday when he apparently lost control of the bar and it fell on his neck. He reportedly spit up blood through his mouth and nose.
A source close to the family told The Times that doctors at California Hospital Medical Center had to realign his larynx.
The team remains in a state of shock, Carroll said.
‘It’s kind of disbelief that something could happen like that,’ he said. ‘We’ll be dealing with this all week and past that.’
-- David Wharton
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