Paralyzed senior scores touchdown in team’s last game

PLATTE, South Dakota — A high school senior who was paralyzed three years ago from a car accident had his number called during his football team’s last game of the season and scored a touchdown.

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Brady Sprik, who was paralyzed from the waist down in October 2017, was called into the fourth quarter of the Platte-Geddes game against Gregory on Oct. 9, the Argus Leader reported.

Black Panthers coach Bruce Hanson called a timeout so Sprik could put on his No. 32 jersey. His teammates then grabbed the sides of his wheelchair and carried him into the end zone on the 1st-and-goal play.

It was a shock to his family, who was there celebrating father Troy’s 50th birthday.

“It was extremely emotional, to say the least,” mother Kristina told the Leader. “It’s what (Brady) needed to reassure him that people still care and haven’t forgotten about him and what he’s going through. It was the boost that he needed.”

Brady Sprik has had an extensive road to recovery. He’s had reconstructive dental work, six vertebrae were fused together and years of rehabilitation.

The family has created a crowd sourced fund to help pay for medical costs.

“It’s been a journey to say the least,” Kristina Sprik told the Leader. “His high school career is supposed to be about doing the things you enjoy and he’s been spending it at the hospital and in therapy and in hospitals. But he’s had the best attitude a kid could possibly have through it all. Troy and I couldn’t be any more proud of him.”

Cox Media Group