Soccer player takes field again after spring break car accident

By David Elvir

Staff Writer

The entire bench stands up. Players, coaching staff, athletic trainers all applauded. All 11 Trojans in the field stop and put their hands together in admiration. The crowd cheers. Stepping onto the soccer field is number 15—Orlando Jerez.

“Ladies and gentlemen, an important substitution for the Trevecca Trojans to mention, enter to the field, Orlando Jerez. He is coming from a really bad injury he had, but now he’s back on the field,” notes the game announcer.

On Oct. 14, against Ohio Dominican University with a 5-2 score on the boar, Jerez was given his first minutes after a life-altering accident, which left everybody questioning if he ever would be able to step on the on a field again.

“Throughout the whole season, I never thought my name would get called… I was surprised. The feeling I had going in the field was ‘Wow, who would’ve thought I could be here now?’ Everybody started cheering up, everyone was just so happy to see me go out there. Just the joy of everyone being so happy felt so good… I couldn’t describe that feeling.” Said Jerez.

The senior forward went through long months of recovery where a comeback to soccer, from the outside, looked close to fiction.

Handing off to his much desired spring break, Jerez, started a lonely 7+ hour drive from Nashville to Destin Florida. Jerez remained in constant communication with his mom and his friends. When this communication broke down, his people got worried.

The last time he talked to his mom, Lori Foutch, he told he was about 40 minutes from his destination.

“I had called him maybe 20 minutes before the accident happened, just to see where he was and if he had gotten there so he told me then, that he was about 40 minutes away from the destination, so I was like ‘Okay call me when you get there.’” said Foutch. “I was waiting to receive the call, which I thought he was just going to see his friends and he forgot, so I texted and called a lot, and I was worrying.”

Sometime later, Foutch received a text message from one of the friends his son was going to meet up with, saying Jerez was nowhere to be seen yet and that they had heard about a serious car accident nearing Destin. Foutch immediately called the hospital.

It was around 7 p.m. when Jerez was looking to turn left on a traffic light, 40 minutes away from the place he was staying. After what Jerez claims is a black space in his memory, he woke up in a hospital asking for water.

“I was at a light, about to turn left, from there the next thing I remember was asking for water at the hospital, but I was confused. From the call to asking for water I don’t remember how anything happened, I didn’t see the car coming or anything,” said Jerez.

Jerez was hit head-on at the Destin bridge in Florida, resulting in two fatalities from the other end. He was rushed to the hospital for surgery.

Jerez’s mom, desperately looking for answers, found one when she got confirmation his son was involved in an accident, without knowing if he had made it or not.

“They told me that there was a fatality. When they were making me wait that initial five minutes, they were waiting to make sure that he was the one that was alive,” said Foutch. “His injuries were so great that yes, I was concerned because they still had not fully done everything they needed to do to make sure that he was going to make it and that there were no major internal injuries at that point.”

Jerez was severely injured, fractures on both his femur and his tibia were compound, breaking through his skin. His arms had fractures as well. This is when Foutch immediately thought about soccer.

“I immediately thought about soccer and everything that it had meant through him over the years. I wondered if this was going to be the end of that, also still focusing more on that he was alive, but I did Immediately think about soccer,” said Foutch.

Back in Nashville, Jerez’s soccer coach at Trevecca was not aware of the accident until Brenda Patterson, from Trevecca’s Department of Exercise and Sport Science, contacted him about the accident.

“I found out through Dr. Patterson. They contacted Dr. Patterson because then, she was the first person they could get a hold of at the university. They contacted Dr. Patterson and then Patterson got in touch with me,” said Dany Leavy, Trevecca Men’s Soccer head coach.

Days after releasing his team for spring break, Leavy was struck by the news he could not believe.

“I was very, you know, just shocked honestly. It’s just natural to fear for him. I was just worried about him, you know. I wanted to know how he was doing. Waiting in between phone calls at first was really stressful. Just waiting to hear from Orlando’s mom to find out, you know, ‘Is he still alive?’” said Leavy.

Jerez had to go through nine-and-a-half hours of intensive surgery, where his injuries were taken care of, while still leaving great uncertainty about his lifestyle after the crash. Accompanied by his parents, Jerez was allowed to leave Destin so he could begin his recovery process.

Jerez went back home to embark on a journey full of adversity. Relocated at Trustpoint Hospital in Murfreesboro Tennessee, he started a recovery process that he said he doubted he could get through at times.

“It’s not because of my own strength that I was able to get where I am now, but because of God,” said Jerez.

What followed is a narrative woven with threads of resiliency, transforming a survival anecdote into a saga of self-determination, where a near-death experience turned a miraculously saved soccer player into an inspiration for all who witnessed his remarkable journey back to the field.

“When I heard about the extent of the injury, the first thing I thought about was ‘Is he going to be able to walk again?’ From then it was just exciting. Just watching him on the side, you could see him over there working really hard off on the side, and then all of sudden he was on passing drills, and then he was in some of the technical warm ups and then built all the way up to where we were able to put him on the field in a game,” said Leavy. “It was awesome to watch.”