Harvard junior Aiden Fiegel expected to fully recover from scary injury Friday

Harvard junior Aiden Fiegel will be back in school Tuesday after suffering a scary injury in Friday night’s game that prompted a Flight for Life helicopter ride to Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville.

Fiegel was hit in the back and landed awkwardly midway through the second quarter of Friday’s 49-0 loss to Richmond-Burton. Play was stopped while he was attended to by trainers, and an ambulance was called.

Fiegel lost feeling in his left leg after the injury. He was released from Condell on Saturday afternoon.

“When the neurosurgeon came in Saturday afternoon, the official diagnosis was a spinal concussion,” said Chris Fiegel, Aiden’s father. “That inflammation caused the disruption of the nerves when he lost the feeling in his left leg.”

Aiden Fiegel was leaping for a pass when the injury occurred. Chris and Jackie Fiegel looked at the HUDL game video from both Harvard and R-B to review the play.

“Aiden went up to get it and took a shot to the back. It was a clean hit,” Chris Fiegel said. “Then, due to that hit, it seemed like he landed face-down, and that kind of forced his head up so his back was arched.

“It was very scary. Having had him lay there for several minutes and not moving, I started to get a little concerned. Jackie and I started to walk over on the field when we saw the ambulance. [R-B defensive coordinator] Steve Wood’s a good friend and called me. And one of the Harvard assistants walked over to where we were at to tell us to come over. We knew it wasn’t great.”

The Fiegels felt somewhat better when they saw movement in Aiden’s right leg. Then, when he was turned over to be transported, Aiden felt something pop in his left hip and had some feeling in his toes.

“They began checking feeling, and he had some in his left foot,” Chris Fiegel said. “There were some positives going on already.”

Chris Fiegel said his son was walking gingerly Monday around their house and would be back in school Tuesday. He will miss the basketball season but plans on being back for baseball.