Media MisspeakingFootball Style

I winced when a local TV anchorwoman on Monday portentously reported to Philadelphia-area viewers that seriously injured Buffalo Bills tight end Kevin Everett could die from the spinal injury he received making a tackle at a Sunday NFL game against the Denver Broncos.

It was a media sentence of death. Did he have family in the area who heard that grim prognosis? Could the injured player himself have heard the same dire warning in his hospital room? Isn't there evidence that negative comments about a patient's prognosis made by OR physicians while the patient is under anesthesia still are heard and can become self-fulfilling prophecies?

Wait...a miracle!

Today the NY Times and, according to Google News, approximately 1,500 media outlets are carrying the good story that the player will, in fact, walk again.

After four hours of surgery, orthopedic surgeon and spinal specialist Andrew Cappuccino, M.D. had been quoted in the New York Times as stating Monday afternoon, "... Everett’s chances of a complete recovery as 'unlikely' and between 5 and 10 percent."

But now Everett, according to the NY Daily News, has experienced a "minor miracle," but, sadly, Dr. Cappuccino is not available to the media.

According to the Daily News, a local Buffalo television station quoted Cappuccino as saying, "We may be witnessing a minor miracle."

The NY Times sought an explanation and called doomsday doc Cappuccino. But, "Reached by phone Tuesday night, Cappuccino said he was not permitted by the Bills to comment further," according to today's Times.

The media relations gatekeeper at Millard Fillmore Gates Hospital in Buffalo, Cappuccino's personal PR firm, or the Buffalo Bills' media machine needs a Crisis Communications 101 refresher.

When the risk of death is always possible in minor surgical procedures isn't the risk of recovery possible even after a major injury? Don't people in comas for years suddenly wake up?

Ever notice how the best defense attorneys are quoted initially when a client is indicted or arrested not extolling the client's innocence (that comes later) but stating that they are carefully reading the charges, promising a response later.