 Alex Smith is down. I remember doctors coming in and I'm wrapping my leg in the middle of the night. And literally, they were alarmed by something. It was black. I mean, the blisters were huge. I couldn't fathom seeing this. I'm like, oh, poor movie. They took him back into surgery, opened all that up. And I will never, ever forget this as those surgeons walked out and said, we're in life-saving mode now. And leg-saving mode, but it's in that order. This is the Michael K Show on 98.7 ESPN. All right, tonight at 7.30, E-60, Project 11. Alex Smith, obviously, is at the center of it. He had his leg broken when he was sacked in a game all with the Redskins. And it wasn't just another sports injury, but rather than have me go through it. And you'll see it tonight at 7.30. Let's bring in our very own Stefania Bell, who spearheaded this and takes us through the entire journey. Stefania, it's Michael Don and Peter. Hope you're doing well. I am, thank you so much for having me. Well, it's our pleasure. This looks like, I haven't seen the whole thing. I've seen the highlights. And we just heard at the top some of the audio highlights. It looks like it could be depressing and also uplifting. Which way is it? Well, I think it will be uplifting in the end. This is a happy story. As you've heard from the clips, Alex was in a touch-and-go situation. His life was in danger. There were some concerns about his leg, but we all have seen him. He's very much alive and walking around with two legs. So, you know, you will be uplisted at the end. But I think it's important to understand just how bad it got for him because it helps you appreciate that much more how intense the journey back has been. All right, tell us, Defanya, how bad did it get? Well, it got to, as you heard his mom say in that clip, it got to life-saving mode. You know, he developed an infection. It's always a risk when you have a compound fracture and that means essentially that he had, it was open, the bone pokes through the skin and you're on a football field where all kinds of things can be introduced, dirt, water, dirty uniform, sweat, et cetera. So, you get to the hospital as quickly as possible. They take you to surgery. They clean out the wound. They put the antibiotics in there. They flush it. They get you on antibiotic regimen and they repair the fractures. And at that point, they think everything's going well, but bacteria are microscopic and they're, you know, hearty and they can stick around. And apparently that's what happens. And within a couple of days, his temperature started to spike and things deteriorated for him from there. So for about a week, his life was in danger and obviously he survived it, but in order to do so, to remove the infection, the doctors had to remove his substantial amount of tissue. And that's really what left him with this leg that he's had to work his way back to being as functional as he is right now. Being a Redskins fan and I know a lot of people in Washington, I was hearing things at the time about it being really grave, but Stefania wasn't being reported that way. Even in the post, they didn't seem to have like a full awareness of just how bad things were. How did they manage to keep that so under wraps? And am I wrong in thinking that? It seemed like people didn't understand for quite a while how murky the whole thing was. You're absolutely right. And I think it's a credit to everyone who is in that immediate inner circle, Alex's immediate family and obviously the healthcare providers. These places take HIPAA violations seriously and they really gathered around and protected him. And one of the things Elizabeth, Alex's wife said to me that really struck me was, you know, they have three young kids and she was trying to keep their lives as normal as possible. So she's sending them to school with the help of family and friends who are getting the kids to school while she's in the hospital. And she didn't want the kids to hear from another kid whose parent might've read something that was speculative in the paper and so on. So she said, you know, we didn't even know what was happening, meaning her and Alex. And of course, Alex wasn't totally coherent because he was on so much pain medicine but her and the rest of his family, we didn't know what was happening from one minute to the next. We didn't want the kids to be hearing things that, you know, scared them quite frankly. And so in trying to keep everything as normal as possible, they really kept it on the need to know basis until they were ready to share the story. In real time, you go from, and you heard it in the clip where it's life or death and then it's about saving the leg. So was everything all at once or was it in a stage of, okay, he's out of the woods. He's gonna be all right. And now let's focus on saving the leg. It's a combination answer actually because they were trying to save his leg while they were also trying to save his life. The infection was sourced from the leg. So there was a question of, do you sacrifice the leg to in fact save his, and I think through the detail of telling the story, you're better able to appreciate that. But even after that decision is made because his leg is compromised, you're not guaranteed if you're Alex, but you are going to be able to keep that leg forever going forward. So the next couple of months in particular while he was still on antibiotics even after he left the hospital and the early work that he had to do, the additional surgeries he had to undergo to try and reconstruct his leg, those were, nothing was guaranteed through that. And in that regard, even though they had saved his leg initially, there was a question about whether he'd ultimately be able to keep it. And that's what made this journey for him so long and so intense. Is if on your bell is our guest here on the Michael K. Show E60 tonight. I just, I have to ask you this. You said he's up and walking around and that's amazing. Does he wanna play A and B? If he does, why? Well, you know, you'd have to ask him on the why. I mean, I think, you know, professional athletes are wired a certain way and he's also a very driven, focused, competitive guy. I mean, I've gotten to know him after spending quite a bit of time around him. And it's interesting. First of all, I'm a physical therapist by training originally and you always set goals for your patients that you want them to achieve. So you set these smaller goals when you have a big injury like this because you don't wanna make the goal so distant that they get discouraged. When you have someone, and this happens a lot with professional athletes that just keeps meeting these goals, you have to keep making them bigger and bigger for them to stay motivated and engaged. And Alex could feel as he was making progress that he was now starting to think, hey, I'm doing pretty well. I'm doing better than maybe I even expected. Is there, maybe there's a chance that I can play. And so I think he sees it as a challenge. I think he sees it as nobody's ever done this before. Maybe I can be the first. And that's a real motivator. I also think he's got amazing perspective and if football was not a part of his future, Alex Smith will be just fine. But right now I think it provides this challenge for him that he enjoys quite frankly. And after seeing what he's overcome so far, far be it from me to suggest that he would not be able to do this if that's what he desires. Back to this team that this happened to. I'm sorry, I'm sort of hung up on this. Is, does the, how bad things got? Does it have anything to do with the Redskins decision making, medical staff, et cetera at all? And furthermore, did Alex Smith ever communicate with Trent Williams? Because there's obviously a period that crossed over where both a quarterback and his starting left tackle were in grave danger physically. I wonder if they ever communicated. I can't speak to the latter. I really honestly don't know. But what I can tell you is that one of Alex and Elizabeth's goals in doing this documentary style piece was that they wanted to show just how much gratitude and appreciation they have for the medical staff. They are incredibly close with not only the head team physician, Dr. Robin West, but all the surgeons, two trauma surgeons, a plastic surgeon, physical therapist, the athletic trainers, the folks, everybody who had a hand in Alex's care, they believe they got the best care possible and that Alex isn't here without them. So contrary to things that have been floating around, that's straight from the people who lived it. And I think if you watch the piece, you wouldn't need me to tell you this, you know? And so, but it wasn't very, it was very important to them. And I also think that's why rather than address things that were speculative as they came out, they really wanted to present the story in its entirety and present it to people in that way. And they reached out to you, Stefania, right? Because they wanted you to tell the story. They did. You know, I think when they were having initial conversations about documenting this with Dr. West, as soon as Alex realized it really wasn't anybody who'd been through something like this before, she mentioned my name. Dr. West and I have known each other professionally through Sports Medicine World for a number of years. And I think she thought with my medical background and obviously my current role at ESPN that I would be a good fit with them. And so we all had a phone conversation and Alex and Elizabeth and I talked at length and they decided that they wanted me to do it. And I'm so grateful that they did. Because of your extensive background, you've seen a lot. Anything with Alex's recovery and the things you had to see that actually made you a bit squeamish? Was it that bad? You know, I don't get squeamish on these things. So I may not be the best person to ask, but startling, sure. Because even though in my technical brain, I understood the technicality of the injuries he'd suffered. You know, when I first met him, I didn't see his leg. It was wrapped. He had just been home from the hospital for a few weeks. He was on a walker. He was in that external fixer device. You see the circular cage, which is there to hold the bones in place. But I hadn't seen the images from when he had the surgeries and when the leg was unwrapped. So by the time I saw those images, which was, you know, weeks or even a couple months later, I was already seeing what he was doing. And so even though the images are startling, it's hard to reconcile what I'm seeing in front of me in terms of how successful he is with the images of where he came from. Not squeamish, but definitely startled at just how significant the loss of tissue was. And I think that's why it's so important to share that because it's hard to wrap your head around just how much he's had to overcome. Well, I mean, you're an incredible storyteller on ESPN. So I'm really looking forward to watching this tonight at 7.30. It doesn't sound like it would be fun, but it could be uplifting because as you said, he's up and about and certainly had a scare. So we thank you for spending part of your Friday with us. Thank you so much for having me. And I really hope everyone enjoys the program. Thank you, Stefania. That's Stefania Bell. Boy, it's a man. And Peter was telling us, you know, when it was not out there that he was hearing that this was pretty bad stuff.