Homecoming for Lane Tech student who suffered brain injury in football game

May 27--The birds are chirping on a perfect spring day, and Chris Williams is happy, almost like a new father. His 17-year-old son Drew, tucked inside an ambulance, with his mother and aunt beside him, is just minutes away.

"He's coming home, Grandma!" Williams' steady voice calls out to a neighbor, an elderly woman who used to baby-sit Drew.

Williams has just pulled up with a wheelchair strapped to the top of his car. He removes it and, as he snaps the chair together for his son, reflects on this day -- one he was told not to count on. He's nervous but glad, anxious to "take care of him like you want to."

It had been more than seven months since Chris Williams made a desperate leap over a fence at a South Side football stadium to get to his injured son. The severity of Drew's injury was obvious immediately. After limping off the field and collapsing on the sideline, his body shook and seized and his breathing deepened, friends and family said.

Later, at a nearby hospital, the family was left with a shattering prognosis: Be prepared for the possibility that their son, brother and nephew -- a standout Lane Tech player who had dreams of playing college ball -- might not survive damage that his brain had suffered. And if he did, it would be a difficult, unpredictable recovery.

Football's inherent threat of injury, immediate and long term, has increasingly become a topic of national conversation that includes numerous lawsuits filed by injured players and a movement to unionize at the collegiate level because of the risks.

Those dangers are not lost on the Williamses, who have a second son still playing the sport. But since the Oct. 4 injury, the family has been united in focusing its energy in one place: helping Drew heal.

And on this day, he is on his way back -- to the sunny Northwest Side street where he first learned to walk, to a home renovated to meet his medical needs, to a family now trained in how to care for him. He has progressed from a coma to a more alert state. He responds in a limited way to commands to move, and he appears to blink in response to questions or hugs. But he still spends all his time in either a bed or wheelchair and requires intensive therapy.

No one thinks it will be easy. But there is definitely a joy surrounding this house on this day -- even in the friendly mail carrier, Ana Santiago. She can recall preteen Drew playing football in the street. "He was always cheerful; he was a sweet boy," she says.

"The ambulance is bringing him now," Chris Williams explains as Santiago stops, curious.

"Amazing," she responds joyfully. "I'm glad for you."

"I'm happy," he tells her. "Thank you, Ana. It's gonna be fine."

Minutes later, when the ambulance arrives and the doors swing open, he repeats those words in the quiet, reassuring tone children sometimes need from their parents.

"My man," the father says, holding his son's ankle lovingly. "You're home now, Drew. We got you home now. It's gonna be fine."

'Stay with us'

At Lane, Williams played offense and defense and was a team leader, the one who led the pregame chant that ended with one of his signature lines: "Let's eat." As in "eat" the opponent.

Football means a lot to the Williamses. Drew's father played some in college. His mother, a sports fanatic, played for fun as a child. And Bryce Williams, a sophomore, was good enough to be on the varsity roster alongside his brother last season.

In a Facebook picture, Drew Williams strikes an ESPN-ready pose, his helmet tipped back to reveal his handsome, yet serious game face. His love of the game was evident even as a little boy. Since the injury, his sister, Andrea, has kept a screen shot on her phone of a grade school art project in which he was supposed to complete the sentence, "I am special because ..."

In the picture, young Drew has a big smiley face. His sentence reads, "I am special because I can play football."

He was injured in a game against Dunbar at Gately Stadium on the South Side, though details about how it happened are not clear. Witnesses said there was no crushing blow or audible gasp from the crowd. He walked to the sideline with the help of a teammate.

But shortly after getting off the field, he had a seizure and collapsed, as a stadium of horrified parents and fans looked on. His father jumped a fence, and the staff gathered around, calling his name and trying to keep him alert.

"Stay with us, Drew, stay with us, Drew," the staff called out, recalls his mother, Jodi Williams.

A Chicago Fire Department ambulance took Williams to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was listed in critical condition and needed a ventilator to breathe.

At his North Side school, students responded by making T-shirts and rubber bracelets in his honor. They decorated the fence along the football field with Solo cups in the shape of a heart and No. 3, his number. The hashtag "#prayfordrew" swept Twitter as the family kept a vigil at the hospital.

The next Friday was Parents Night, a game set aside to recognize seniors and their parents. The team's parents lined up on the field at Lane Stadium before the game, many wearing golden T-shirts emblazoned with Drew's name.

Then, at the last second, Jodi and Chris Williams jogged onto the field and lined up with the other parents. Instead of Drew it was Bryce who walked between the couple, his brother's jersey draped over his shoulders.

That night, the Williamses and extended family members sat in the stands to cheer on the team. And they had a hopeful update for their Lane friends: Drew was off the ventilator and breathing on his own.

Storm heaven, claim healing

Within a month of the injury, the family had become familiar with terms such as "coma test" and the importance of keeping Drew stimulated even if he showed no response.

He was moved to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago at the end of October, a key step in his recovery, but then suffered an infection that required a stay at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital.

Through November, he faced pneumonia and more infections, not uncommon with brain injuries, requiring more stays at Lurie.

"It's a tough roller coaster of mourning what he was and being depressed and then finding some strange optimism in spite of it all," his sister said in a Nov. 21 text. "So today I am hopeful."

Outside the hospital rooms, there were other pressing questions about insurance and the long-term costs of his care.

Fundraisers were organized to help the family. Meanwhile, so many food donations were arriving at their door that they put a cooler on the porch.

Through it all, Jodi Williams insisted on maintaining an open-door policy at the hospital for her son's friends so they could visit whenever they wanted. "Drew is as much theirs as he is mine," she explained.

For Joe Loch and Matthew Stemper, his best friends from football, the chance to see him meant everything and it felt good to be there for his mom.

Stemper and Loch, both seniors, visited the Rehabilitation Institute about 20 times, they figure. During visits they would catch Williams up on the "drama" of high school and play the music his mother wouldn't.

"We feel like we know what he's thinking when we tell him stuff," Stemper said. "We just know what he would have to say about it."

"He always had the craziest explanations for everything," Loch said. "His thought process was just unique."

Williams drew people to him because of how funny he was -- in words and his purposefully clumsy nature. On the field, it translated to leadership.

"He had this energy you could build off, whether it was on the football team ... or when we were out at a party," Loch said.

When the football season wound down last fall, his best friends had more time to contemplate the upcoming senior events of prom, graduation and picking a college. It was evident Williams would miss it all.

"It was just like an overwhelming shock at first," Loch said, his voice dropping. "I think we handled it pretty well during the season. Once football ended, it started hitting us harder."

Heading into the Christmas season -- Williams' favorite time of the year -- the tone of the family's Facebook postings seemed to take a more serious turn as the medical complications continued.

"We ask that you stop and pray immediately. We ask that you storm heaven for him and claim healing right now."

In February, the family struck its most cautionary note on Facebook, alerting followers to an upcoming surgery and writing that the update was "painfully difficult" to provide.

"Due to his severe brain injury his progress will be extremely slow."

Then, a month later, the family believed the prayers for progress were answered. They saw the first significant signs of what many never gave up on: The Drew they knew was still there, fighting hard to come back.

"In the past, writing updates on Drew has been disheartening as there was little progress being made. Today, however, we are extremely excited to inform everyone that Drew has turned a corner and is on the upswing!!"

He was growing more alert, keeping his eyes open longer and able to move his tongue and hold his head up for 60 seconds. The family noticed more facial expressions and said he had begun moving his head left to right when asked.

Stemper and Loch saw the progress, too, when they visited the hospital together in March. The friends asked him to blink twice if he knew it "was Joe and Matt."

"And he did," Loch recalled. "And we started jumping up and down, high-fiving. ... That was the first time it actually felt good going."

'We believe'

Sitting at the edge of the hospital bed on a recent afternoon, Jodi Williams was rooting hard for her son, as she had so many times before.

"Can you turn for Mama? Try it again, Drew," Williams said as her son's head arched slowly from left to right, following the sound of her voice. "This way. Follow your eyes. Keep coming. Fight. Fight."

Every inch that Drew moved his head was a victory, like the strides he once made into the end zone.

"Keep coming to Mama," Williams encouraged him. "Your body is healing, baby. We believe. You're doing good. You fight."

She said of the progress: "It's so slight, but it's different. The little corner (of his mouth) goes up a little bit. And again we don't know how much emotion he is able to express with the brain damage. But we do know that he hears -- he hears well. He can see partially out of one eye."

She and the family are convinced Drew is home today because of the power of prayer -- from those close to them and from strangers. They felt so gratified by the support that they planned a prayer service earlier this month and invited the public, sensing that the people who had prayed and sent well wishes needed to come together.

First visitor

In the two hours after Drew returned home last week, medical professionals trickled into the Williams home. Jodi, who has an easy sense of humor, greeted them with hugs and a smile and huddled with them to go over schedules and details of Drew's care.

A dozen or so bags of medical supplies had been hauled into the home. Workers were completing renovations on a bathroom.

Drew received his first visitor -- his oldest friend, Brandon Barahona, 17, who went to kindergarten with him. Jodi ushered Brandon and his mother into the mild chaos, past the medical team and urged them -- as she always had with her son's friends -- to have a visit. Brandon touched his friend's shoulder and leaned in close to say hello.

Christina Williams, Drew's aunt, hovered in the background, jumping to tasks such as tending to the barking family dog and sifting through the supplies for the feeding pole, which apparently was lost in transit. She also stopped occasionally to spend a moment with her nephew, stroking his arms. It was in this house where she first baby-sat Drew. She recalled him cautiously navigating the concrete steps in front as a toddler.

That her nephew is back here, surrounded by friends and family, seven months after suffering such a catastrophic injury, she said, leaves her feeling "faith-fulfilled."

"Drew is the person that is so worthy of this. If anyone is worthy, Drew Michael is worthy of coming home, to be the miracle."

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