EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part story on quarterback Seth Russell's devastating neck injury last fall, the surgery to repair the fractured vertebrae and the miraculous road back to leading the Baylor football team to an undefeated 6-0 start and up to No. 6 in the latest coaches' poll:

By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

In 33 years with the fire department, Ronald Russell had extracted people with neck injuries from vehicles, only to never see them walk again. Some of them "never walked away, period."

So, when he saw the X-rays of his then 21-year-old son that showed a fractured neck, "it definitely humbled me."

"Just because of how everything was offset," his immediate thought was a deep concern for his son's health and future.

"But to go through it with no residuals and everything back in its proper place -- the ligaments, everything, back like it was -- it even stymies me today. It was just all miraculous, to stay the least," said Ronald, the father of Baylor senior quarterback Seth Russell.

Sic 'em bear given to Seth by his brothers.

Oct. 24, 2015, will forever be etched in the hearts and minds of the Russell family.

With Baylor nursing a 15-point lead late in the fourth quarter, Seth lowers his head, trying to pick up a critical first down on third-and-five from Iowa State's 21-yard line. Coming up just a yard short of moving the chains, he takes a devastating helmet-to-helmet blow from safety Jomal Wiltz.

"I didn't really think anything of it," said Dr. Joshua Russell, Seth's oldest brother and an orthopedic surgeon based in Morgantown, W. Va. "It didn't look like much. They showed him on the sidelines with the towel around his neck, and he was moving his neck around. Again, it wasn't like anything bad had happened."

Seth said it "kind of felt like a stinger." And when the family was summoned to the locker room after the game, "the first thing he wanted to do is hug all of us and tell us, `I'm going to be OK.'''

But, it was worse, much worse than a stinger. X-rays showed he had fractured the C-6 vertebrae at the base of his neck. As Seth put it, "I was two millimeters from not even walking off the field or even breathing at that point."

Ronald remembers a point in the game, long before Seth was actually hurt, when his mother leaned over to him and said, "We need to pray right now."

"My mom (Carole) is a prayer warrior. We actually held hands, I grabbed my wife's hand, and my mother said a prayer right there for a hedge of protection, to basically kind of cover the area with a prayer of protection."

And the prayers never stopped.

Shawn Fraser, the pastor at Calvary Chapel in Morgantown, was there to pray before the surgery for "God's touch on their lives."

"The whole family is so supportive of Seth and just supportive of one another," Fraser said. "They just seem to be a very Godly, a very loving family. His mom was here during the recovery process, sitting in the hotel room for days and days . . . just long periods of just boredom when your child is recovering, and a lot of unknowns."

More common in vehicle collisions and diving accidents, vertebrae fractures are rare among elite-level athletes. And while there are plenty of doctors that can "go in and fix the issue," Ronald said, "there are only three doctors in the free world that could fix it to where he could play again, that know and understand the complex procedure that it's going to take to get it back to where it needs to be, to where he can play again."

Taking that into account, what are the odds that Seth's oldest brother would just happen to be a resident orthopedic surgeon at a hospital where one of those three specialists also works?

A former Texas A&M football player, Joshua had graduated from the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio just two years before and done a one-year residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Md., and was in his second year at West Virginia University Medicine.

"He could have wound up anywhere, even outside the United States," Ronald said.

Joshua, who had even considered going into radiology instead of orthopedics, said, "It's amazing that I was in the situation I was -- in my residency, doing spinal surgery with one of the top cervical spine surgeons in the country. I can't explain it. And for my brother to have this specific injury that required expertise to have a great outcome, it is definitely a God thing that I was up here in West Virginia of all places."

Going into full-on research mode the next day after Seth's injury, Joshua started compiling information and trying to find out who the best doctors were in this area, because "I wanted to get as many different options as I could to give my brother the best opportunity to do what he wanted to do."

That was one of the first tough questions. When Joshua saw the X-rays and realized there had to be a surgery, his question to Seth was, "Is this something you want to do?"

"And from the very beginning, he said, `I love this, I understand, and I want to purse every option I can to get back out there and play,''' Joshua said. "At that point, I wanted even more to talk to multiple people across the country to figure out what was the best thing to do."

Where it led him was right back where he started, with Dr. Sanford Emery. Not only is he the chair of the WVU School of Medicine Department of Orthopaedics, he's also the current president of the American Orthopaedic Association.

"It's not that I wouldn't have anybody else do surgery on my brother," Joshua said. "It's just that I've operated with him, and I know he is a meticulous surgeon, and that's who I wanted to give my brother the best chance of coming back to play football."

In the words of ESPN analyst Lee Corso, "Not so fast, my friend."

"Everything is driven by insurance, so first off the doctor has to have the credibility to do the surgery," Ronald said. "And then, the hospital has to approve the surgery. In a specialized surgery of this type, it's a process. So, when Dr. Emery went through it and made the presentation, the hospital board says thumbs-up, go for it."

Taking a look at the X-rays, CT scan and MRI, Dr. Emery saw that it was an "unstable fracture, so it had to be operated on and that level has to be fused," he said.

"Sometimes you need to do a two-level fusion to fix that fracture, and sometimes you can do it with a one-level fusion," Dr. Emery said. "So for him, that choice is a big deal, because players who have a one-level fusion can still participate in elite, contact athletics, including the NFL and NHL. But, patients with a two-level fusion, generally speaking, would not be allowed to play in the pro sports realm. The more levels you do, the more you worry about the mechanics and other types of injury.

"If you can play with a one-level fusion, the risk of any further injury is really baselined. So, when I watch Seth play now, I don't worry about him getting hit any more than I would worry about any of the other players getting hit, whether they're a quarterback, a linebacker, a split end or what have you."

Because of the nature of the surgery and the fact Seth is considered a high-profile athlete, the West Virginia hospital was on communications lockdown.

"We had multiple conversations with all of our people about how his name's not going to be listed anywhere, you can't see it in the charts. And anyone that even opens up his chart will be reprimanded," Joshua said. "And then he comes through the front door with his Baylor green and gold, and his cervical collar on."

Seth said he knew they needed to be "as discreet as possible."

"I got the memo, but I didn't get the memo," he said. "I'm going to represent Baylor everywhere I go. I don't think people even realized what was going on. It was early in the morning; it was a quiet hospital at the time."

After a light hug, Joshua's response at seeing Seth walking in all decked out in green and gold was, "Really? The whole hospital is in lockdown because of you, and you come in here with Baylor gear?"

All this happening within a matter of days following the injury, Dr. Emery also wanted his own hand-picked team for the surgery. "One of his assistants is away on vacation," Ronald said, "and he says, `Yeah, sure, I'll forego my vacation to come back and do this."

"So many different things had to happen to make this thing work. Dr. Emery had to be available, his team had to be available, the hospital had to approve it. The miraculous part of this is just very incredible," Ronald said.

Even during the surgery, as soon as Dr. Emery made the incision in Seth's neck, "the piece of bone actually popped right back in place," Ronald said. "He said it was like it had memory, and it went right back in spot."

Dr. Emery said the surgery went great, and the fracture is "totally healed, just like it was supposed to."

"He's a young, healthy guy, so that was sort of the expected outcome," Dr. Emery said. "You never say never, but he's healed it perfectly fine, and he's totally stable. It's really as good as it could be."

To the point of saying that Seth is "at the same risk as someone who's never had any surgery."

Asked if he would have discouraged Seth from playing if he was at any risk of further injury, Dr. Emery said, "Yes, absolutely."

"You don't send someone out there if they're at increased risk for injury," he said. "Now, you have to put it in perspective. If somebody has a small, herniated disc, can they still play contact sports? Yes, almost always for a small, herniated disc. Now, if they have a large, herniated disc, with some spinal-cord compression from the disc herniation, would you send him back out there to play contact sports? No."

Seth says it's his faith and the support of his family that has carried him through one of the toughest times imaginable for an athlete.

"With all the support around me, and my faith, I believe that I was going through this for a reason," he said. "It was not `Why me?' but `I'm glad it's me' type of deal. I feel like God was there with me through it all. If he didn't want me to play, I'd be in a wheelchair or possibly dead right now. But with the way everything worked out -- with no paralysis, even after the break -- that was telling me that you have a chance. As long as you keep your mind right, you keep focused on what you need to focus on, God's going to see you through."