After near-crippling injury, local student gives back to children’s hospital

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla — High school football means everything to players with plans to take the sport to college and beyond. But one local Beachside High School freshman’s plans changed after an injury almost ended his hopes of stepping back on the field.

“At minimum, I wanted to bring it to college, but I was thinking maybe bringing it to the league,” says Ethan Manley, who’s been playing football for more than half his life.

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Ethan and his family are new to St. Johns County from southern California, so, for him, football has been a source of comfort after moving across the country.

Before he was a freshman at Beachside High School, Ethan says playing at a stadium like the one at the high school was a dream. But it was almost taken away after a hospital visit turned into months of surgeries.

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“It’s just such an empty feeling,” Manley says, “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”

In middle school, a hurt leg sent Ethan to the emergency room. He found out he had a massive infection spreading into his bones, creating pockets of infection making holes Ethan says made his bones look like a sponge.

Ethan’s parents tell me it took him around nine months to recover. Ethan says he wasn’t sure he’d walk again.

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“I was pretty close to dying, and it just teaches everybody to live every second through, because you might not have another day,” says Manley.

But now, more than a year after getting out of the hospital, not only is Ethan back on his feet, but back on the field. Something still with him, though, are his memories from the hospital.

“I’m scared not just for the people in the hospital but the families supporting them, that they’re going to feel a sense of emptiness, or a sense of hopelessness,” Manley says, “it’s very, very scary.”

Ethan tells me he remembers sitting in his room at Wolfson Children’s Hospital with a similar feeling of hopelessness, empty with the thought his body might not recover, regardless of how bad he wanted it.

Ethan’s since organized a pajama drive at Beachside High School he says is to help other kids and teens have hope in the hospital. All the donations will go to patients there, a way for Ethan to take his own hope and use it to heal.

“It’s just the love you get from people that helps keep you going,” says Manley.

The pajama drive is happening tomorrow at Beachside High School. The Manley family has also started a nonprofit, Endzone Comfort, to help others give back to kids at the hospital. If you’d like to donate, you can do so by clicking here.

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