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Former first-overall NFL Draft Pick Alex Smith shocked fans this week with a photo of his gnarled right leg that has undergone a remarkable 17 surgeries since his gruesome 2018 injury in Washington.
The 40-year-old retired quarterback was complaining about a sun burn on his legs in a recent Instagram post.
‘Probably should have put sunscreen on,’ he captioned the post showing a distinct farmer’s tan on his legs.
But it wasn’t the mild sunburn that caught the eyes of fans, but rather the disfigured calf muscle stretching between his knee and ankle.
‘He’s lucky to be even walking by the looks of it,’ one fan responded online.
Washington QB Alex Smith (11) is carted off the field after suffering an lower leg injury in 2018
The retired QB complained about a sun burn on his legs in a recent Instagram post
The injury occurred on November 18, 2018 during a game against the Houston Texans.
Since then, Smith has required 17 surgeries, many of them to fight a life-threatening infection that nearly resulted in amputation. His injury and recovery were featured in an ESPN documentary released in 2020.
In that film, Smith details his arduous journey back from his broken leg in which he suffered from necrotizing fasciitis, or flesh-eating disease, due to a rare bacterium in his bloodstream.
‘So Alex has a flesh-eating bacteria that’s eating away at his leg,’ Smith’s wife Elizabeth said in the film. ‘He’s septic and, essentially, dying. We’re being inundated with medical language. Family, friends, everybody is on high emotion.’
Elizabeth described surprising exchange with a doctor before surgery that illustrated the gravity of her husband’s situation: ‘We’re doing the best we can. And right now, our first priority is we’re going to save his life. And then we’re going to do our best to save his leg. And anything beyond that is a miracle.’
Smith did reveal in October 2019 that nearly half of his surgeries were aimed at removing infected tissue from his leg, but it was not until the ESPN documentary that the full extent of his ordeal was revealed.
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT BELOW
Alex Smith announces a game between the Commanders and Eagles on November 14, 2022
Smith’s leg became infected after his injury and most of his 17 surgeries were aimed at avoiding amputation. At one point doctors told Smith’s wife that his life was in danger
According to Elizabeth, doctors explained that Smith’s leg deteriorated quickly, turning black and blistering only hours after it appeared to be relatively normal.
One doctor described the situation as ‘more comparable to a military blast injury.’
In order to repair the muscle damage surrounding his right tibia, doctors needed to remove part of Smith’s left quad in what was considered a risky procedure.
‘We wouldn’t want to try that surgery and – if it doesn’t work – weaken the leg that you would have to use for the rest of your life as the strong leg,’ one doctor told Smith.
The 49ers drafted Smith with the No. 1 overall pick in 2005, and he played seven seasons in San Francisco and five with the Kansas City Chiefs before joining Washington in 2018.
Nowadays Smith works as an NFL analyst for ESPN.
