Chiefs WR Mecole Hardman couldn't feel his legs for 4 days after 2022 injury
Wide receiver Mecole Hardman returned to the Kansas City Chiefs via trade Wednesday after spending seven relatively unproductive months with the New York Jets. Hardman had mostly been a healthy scratch in New York and had just one catch over six games, and now he's back with the team that drafted him in the second round in 2019.
When he spoke to the media Thursday, Hardman discussed the pelvic/abdominal injury he sustained in Week 9 of 2022, an overtime win over the Tennessee Titans. Osteitis pubis, an inflammation of the joint between the right and left pubic bones, caused him to miss the final eight weeks of the regular season, and it also sent him to the hospital for 10 days and caused him to temporarily lose feeling in his legs.
"People don't really understand [that] I was in the hospital for 10 days," Hardman said. "I literally had no feeling in my legs for four days. I couldn't walk for four or five days. And then finally I got the feeling back in my legs on probably, like, the sixth day and walked the next couple of days, then finally got discharged from the hospital and went on the road to recovery. Also to get back to play in the AFC Championship Game, which I was like 65-70% [healthy for]. I ended up tearing my groin on that play, the last play I played, which was a blessing in disguise for me, honestly, so I could really have surgery and repair everything."
Hardman called the entire situation "scary as hell." As he continued to discuss it, it wasn't hard to see why. The injury affected his ability to walk and the recovery was painful. Now, he's grateful all of that is behind him.
"I finished the game fine, it was against the Titans, I finished the game fine," Hardman said. "The next day, I was perfectly fine and then probably around 2:30 p.m. or 3 that day, I caught a cramp in my stomach and didn't really think much of it. But every hour, it got worse and worse to the point where I couldn't walk. That's kind of where it led me to being in the emergency room and when I got to the emergency room, I took my last steps for like five days. The bed I got in at the emergency room was the bed I was in for 10 days, so it was kind of one of those injuries that we didn't shed much light on last year. We didn't really need to but now that we're here, it's kind of one of them injuries that makes you think about a lot of things. I'm just happy to actually be here healthy and able to do the things that I normally was able to do."
If he can do the things that he was normally able to do when he was healthy, the Chiefs will be very happy. Kansas City's trio of Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Kadarius Toney and Skyy Moore haven't been producing at their expected levels, and the Chiefs are hoping Hardman can provide some help.
