Life Is Not an Accident Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    I WAS IN bed, unable to recognize myself as I drifted in and out of consciousness, just staring at the tiles of a popcorn ceiling above. The drugs helped only so much to block out the moans and screams coming from patients in other rooms. The smell. An odor that exists only in a space where many are crying and bleeding, clinging to life. The morphine drips couldn’t trickle down fast enough. I would open my eyes, take one look at what I’d done to myself the night before, and pass out again. This was my second night in ICU hell at Illinois Masonic.
    The next day—don’t ask me what time—a figure emerged from the doorway of my room, walking toward me. At first I justassumed it was a doctor or someone else who worked there. But all it took was a couple of steps and I knew exactly who it was.
    Three years earlier, around the time I committed to Duke, Coach K had undergone joint replacement surgery for his left hip. Ever since, his gait would favor one side over the other. It was a walk I knew all too well. We locked eyes, as we had so many times before; tears streamed down both of my cheeks as he clutched my right hand. I was overwhelmed with emotion—my second father had arrived. I blacked out once again.
    I was groggy when I came to, which was when I looked to my right at K, still holding my hand.
    â€œI’m never going to play again.” I began to sob.
    I had been mourning all that I had thrown away, and now I was overcome with guilt, ashamed that I had let him down.
    He let go of his firm grasp, reached into his pocket, and took out a pendant. He told me it was his mother’s rosary as he put it in my hand.
    â€œGive this back to me when you play again, because you are going to play again.”
    I looked directly at him, but that wasn’t good enough for him. He demanded that I hear him and feel what he was saying.
    â€œLook at me,” he said with conviction. “You’re going to play again.”
    I am certain he was distraught seeing one of his many sons in such a horrifying condition, but he refused to show sadness or disappointment. Instead he stood by my side, not allowing me the option of giving up.
    Of all the memories I have of playing for Coach K—and I have many—that moment in Illinois Masonic is my fondest. He will always give every ounce of himself to help you become thebest version of yourself. It doesn’t stop when you’re done playing for him. If you need him, he’s there without your having to ask.
    That’s a man. That’s a coach.
    A FTER CLOSE TO a month at Illinois Masonic, Coach K and Duke went out of pocket to fly me in a private medical plane to Durham, where I was admitted to Duke University Hospital for another month. In August, my parents rented a house in Durham, where I spent countless days in a hospital bed that was brought in.
    It was the first time in about six and a half weeks that I was sleeping in a house and not a hospital. I was high on OxyContin and virtually out of it on a regular basis. The drugs numbed the physical pain but didn’t do anything to quell the mental agony I was in. They plunged me into my own personal hell. I had nothing but time to think about the accident and what I had done to myself.
    I became obsessive about how I was going to handle confronting the world. This was before the social media era, when something like this would’ve been impossible to escape from. Rather than tweets and postings, I received literally thousands of handwritten letters from people all across the world. The story had gone global.
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    I fantasized about the things people were saying to one another at work, at the gym, while out for dinner. Everywhere. Things like I wonder if he’s ever going to be able to walk again . . . What