**Editor'due south note: This commodity contains an image of injuries that some may find graphic. Discretion is advised.

CALEDONIA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (Woods) — Like many coaches who take influenced him, Sparky McEwen builds his football program on far more than the outcome of a game. In fact, earning wins is merely icing on the cake for Davenport University's head football game passenger vehicle.

"Being my brother'south keeper, beingness the guy that looks out for my teammate," McEwen said. "I always preach to them when the clock hits iv zeros, it's over. It's back to the real globe and the earth of life, and life happens."

On a Sunday night in Nov, life, in its most challenging class, happened to Davenport'southward football family.

Senior defensive finish Robert Clanton, along with teammates Malik Hayes and Meekah Ben-Israel, were pushing a car a short distance down 68th Street in Dutton to a gas station.

Malik Hayes during a Davenport football during the 2019 season.  (Courtesy Davenport University)

"It was the finish of the flavor, so we had some banged upwards injuries and so nosotros were switching" who was pushing and who was steering, Clanton described.

Moments later, life changed for the 3 football players.

"Out of nowhere, a car only come flying and smashed Malik. I went to the front to go Malik. I didn't know what was going to happen to him," Clanton recalled. "It just felt like it was forever. It was but- That was the toughest time. Y'all don't know what's going to happen at that point in time. All I really run across is my friend with his bones out and blood everywhere."

Neither Clanton nor Ben-Israel, who was in the driver's seat, were injured. But Hayes, their teammate and close friend, was in a fight for his life.

Nearby, a grouping of men were gathered at Railtown Brewery for a Base Military camp fellowship meeting.

"It'due south a identify where men assemble to share stories of grace and redemption," attendee Steven Huizinga explained.

Many of them heard the affect. Huizinga, Randy Beute and Shaine Kimball raced out to see what had happened.

"I but knew I had to get out there," Beute said.

"I ran out and looked and saw a body there," Huizinga said. "I jumped the fence and Shaine and Randy were already out there."

"Randy was supporting his caput and talking to him. I was trying to keep him calm," Kimball said. "Nosotros had to find something to tourniquet his legs. He was bleeding from his legs. He was losing quite a scrap of blood. Steve pulls off his belt and ties it as tight equally he can."

McEwen lives simply about a mile and a half from the site of the crash. Someone within the grouping knew the players and called him immediately.

"What I witnessed at that scene, you just knew it was it," McEwen said.

"There was a minor tinge of helplessness when (Hayes) was loaded into the ambulance and we're no longer helping him," Beute said. "At that point when you have to let him go and trust that everything is going to work out the way that God wanted it to piece of work out."

Hayes was taken to Metro Health Hospital in Wyoming for emergency surgery. Like the fighter they all knew him to be, he lived.

His mom Marian Greenish lived in Louisiana at the fourth dimension. She made it to Grand Rapids the side by side twenty-four hours to run into her son.

"When I was able to see him, I realized this was really serious," Greenish said. "With the extent of his injuries, they explained to me in detail that it's a long recovery ahead."

Hayes had cleaved bones and major structural damage to both legs. He was lucky to be live, let lonely still have the chance to i day walk again.

Malik Hayes at Metro Wellness Hospital following a car crash in November 2019. (Courtesy Malik Hayes)

A few days after the crash, he started to become his memory back.

"Sometimes I try to not think about it at all. Sometimes again I get pitiful thinking about it," Hayes said. "I get very emotional sometimes, nevertheless, thinking about it."

He was transferred to Mary Gratuitous Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids for rehabilitation and concrete therapy.

"For Malik, being that football game histrion, that agile guy, is very helpful," Mary Free Bed Dr. Meagan Smith said.

His half-dozen-pes-five, 260-pound fame certainly gives him an advantage in recovery, only it's dwarfed by his relentless attitude.

"I just dig down in me," Hayes said. "I think nearly the futurity and simply keep pulling through this and working hard every day in therapy and just trying to get better."

Nigh two months to the day afterward the crash, with the aid of a walker, he took his beginning steps.

"It feels pretty proficient to be able to progress every day and it feels actually good to walk again," he said.

Malik Hayes uses a walker to assist him accept steps during rehabilitation at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in January 2020.

"When I saw him put weight on his legs, it was a miracle. He's putting weight on his legs. It's crazy to me," said Clanton, pausing to wipe a tear. "I teared upward when I saw considering it is a miracle. It fabricated me believe God has a programme for everybody."

"Sometimes there'south stuff that happens in medicine nosotros tin can't describe and why in this situation he was able to keep both legs," Dr. Smith added.

Another thing there is no explanation for: why the Base Camp fellowship group happened to movement its meeting up one day that nighttime in November.

A Base Camp fellowship meeting at Railtown Brewery in Dutton on Nov. 17, 2019. (Courtesy Kevin DeVries)

"If those guys weren't there, Malik, he would've passed," McEwen said.

"I truly believe in that location was God'southward hand was in this," Huizinga said. "Seeing him lying on the ground, I thought, 'Man, I hope he lives.' Let alone putting the tourniquet on his legs and feeling at that place wasn't a lot there when I wrapped information technology effectually his legs. I thought, 'There'due south no way.'"

You lot may also be inclined to believe in that location's no way Hayes will ever suit up and play football game again, but anyone who knows him knows in that location's no claiming too big for the strong-willed fighter.

Malik Hayes rehabilitation and physical therapy at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Infirmary in Jan 2020.

"I'm going to e'er fight through no matter what the outcome will exist," Hayes said. "I just take always been a hard worker at everything I do. That'southward only me. I continue fighting through and pulling through."

Asked if Hayes would never play football game once again, McEwen quickly responded, "Who says? (Considering) what I saw, who says that?"

Hayes is from San Diego but is staying in Michigan for rehab. His mother and step-father relocated here to be with him for the duration. He has already obtained his undergraduate caste and is continuing to take online classes to work toward his main'due south degree. He plans to graduate from Davenport next spring.

A GoFundMe account has been ready to assist Hayes.