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Teammates Rally For Injured Sacramento Wildcats Football Player

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Teammates of a young father and football player are rallying to his aid after he suffered a devastating injury on the field.

D'Ondre Ransom is recovering from a hard hit during a game for the Sacramento Wildcats on Saturday.

His team will tell you he's used to taking hard hits where he would get up time and time again. But this one was different.

"D'Ondre came up to fill a hole when a pulling guard was coming toward him and caught him on the side of the helmet, and it shook his brain up pretty good, said teammate Josh Zufelt.

The result: A blood clot in his brain.

Doctors removed a part of his skull to try and ease the swelling.

"Hopefully after the swelling goes down, they can finish up the rest of the procedures that needs to be done, and he can be coming out of a coma slowly," his cousin Nacole Ransom said.

As his teammates try to come to grips with what happened, they hold on tight to positive thoughts.

"We've got faith and we know he ain't gonna give up, and I know personally and everyone behind me, they ain't gonna give up on him either," Zufelt said.

So now they're working on a new game plan: trying to raise money for D'Ondre's family, who has to travel from Sacramento to Santa Rosa to see him.

But that's not all.

"There's gonna be aftercare, there's gonna be therapy, there's gonna be things he's gonna need going forward," said team owner Charles Howard.

And he will go forward. His family and friends say you can't keep D'Ondre down. Not when so many people are ready to help lift him back up.

"We owe him that as brothers," Howard said. "We owe him that as a team."

It's been just three days since the injury, but already $2,500 has been raised to help out D'Dondre and his family.

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