10-Year-Old, Double-Leg Amputee Back on Football Field
Deven Jackson lost his legs to meningitis, but it didn’t keep him from football.
— -- Deven Jackson is a 10-year-old boy with an incredible love for football, but a near-death experience nearly put his passion on hold forever.
Two years ago, the boy from Shermans Dale, Pennsylvania, got sick. When David and Michelle Jackson rushed their son to the hospital, they got a terrifying diagnosis: Deven had meningitis.
“He was in kidney failure,” his mother said. “They didn't know if he was going to make it.”
Doctors gave Deven a 10 percent chance of survival and he pulled through, but the infections in his legs left them no choice but to amputate both lower legs.
“Like it was really scary, like I didn't really want to lose my legs,” Deven said in an interview with football player and “Good Morning America”’ contributor Tim Tebow.
Deven got better and did well with prosthetic legs, but in order for him to think about football, he needed blades to run. He got them when someone who no longer needed blades donated them to Deven.
He’s now back on the football field.
David Jackson said the first time his son put on his blades “he said he loved the way the wind felt in his face for the first time again, and that was pretty impressive coming out of a nine-year-old boy.”
Tebow asked Jackson how that made him feel and he replied: “I almost bawled like a baby.”
Deven said things went well when he got back onto the practice field.
“The first time we had our scrimmage, coach came over and said, ‘Do you want to get out?’ and I said, ‘No, I want to keep playing,’” the boy said.
