Jacob Rinehart’s front door was knocked on by Aidan Hutchinson, a defensive end for the Detroit Lions.
Audrey Cox, his stepmother, called out from the next kitchen, “Come in!”
Hutchinson used crutches to preserve his surgically healed left leg, which had been shattered in two places last month, as he entered the suburban Detroit residence.
“What’s up, guys?” Hutchinson smiled as he asked. “How we doing?”
Rinehart, wide-eyed and in awe, was just in a state of shock.
Later that evening, he remarked, “I’m sitting here and Aidan Hutchinson walks in the door,” “And, I about dropped dead.”
The Marine, who was told he would never walk again following a training injury, believed that his family was working on something connected to his stepmother’s job because there were more than ten guests, numerous cameras, and lights set up in their home.
Not exactly.
Without anticipating a reaction, Cox told the Lions about her stepson on the team’s website.
After reading her writing, the Lions contacted NFL corporate sponsor Verizon regarding Rinehart. As part of Verizon Access, which offers chances to get behind-the-scenes access to events like NFL games, the club and cellphone carrier planned a number of surprises for him.
To give Rinehart four tickets to Detroit’s Thanksgiving home game versus Chicago, one of his personalized No. 97 jerseys, and an Amon-Ra St. Brown No. 14 jersey, Hutchinson traveled for around one hour.
Brown used FaceTime to communicate with Rinehart while Hutchinson was there. When the All-Pro receiver scored against the Bears, he asked Rinehart to select the celebration he wanted to witness.
“That’s probably the coolest thing that’s happened to me in, like, I don’t know, 20 years, and I’ve only been alive for 20 years,” added the man.
Hutchinson, too, seemed to find meaning in it.
He has a special fondness for the military because his great-grandfather served in the World War II jungle combat outfit known as “Merrill’s Marauders.” He has visited young kids in hospitals on a frequent basis.
Hutchinson, who was sporting Air Jordan sneakers and a sweater with the word UNBROKEN emblazoned across his chest, stated, “It inspires everybody when everybody sees what these kids go through and how they persevered through it.” “And, it puts life in perspective.”
In order to create content for social media posts and a two-minute movie that fans in the stands would see prior to next Thursday night’s home game versus Green Bay, a camera team was present to capture the waves of surprises.
On Thursday morning, Rinehart saw warm-ups from the sidelines of Ford Field in Detroit, where St. Brown visited to sign his jersey and club owner Sheila Ford Hamp informed him that he got two Super Bowl tickets.
“He said `What’s up?’ and asked me if I had a TD celly for him,” Rinehart recalled. “I told him to do a salute, and he said he would.”
Rinehart’s bizarre experience was heightened when the Lions were presented right before start while he was on the field.
Twenty family members and friends were waiting for Rinehart in a suite when he went to watch the game.
“I guess it was a bigger surprise than I thought,” replied the man.
Rinehart needed a positive month.
He was more than two months into his training in South Carolina in the fall of 2023, and just one week away from the Marines’ intense exercise known as “The Crucible,” which concludes a 13-week course, he suffered a spinal cord injury in an accident that left him paralyzed from the neck down.
“They told me I’d never walk again,” he remembered.
A few months into a four-month hospital stay, Rinehart was able to walk with help. As early-arriving fans saw at Ford Field on Thanksgiving, he is able to walk independently after more than a year of rehabilitation back in Michigan.
“I really feel like I’m going to wake up and it’s all going to be a dream,” Cox stated. “I cannot believe this tiny little submission I put in sparked this giant roller coaster that we’re now on.”
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