The harrowing accident that almost ended Nyheim Hines’ career

The first two weeks after surgery were the worst, the pain was so crippling and so persistent that Nyheim Hines couldn’t even imagine climbing out of bed.

Just the thought of ordering takeout made him cringe; that required him to stagger all the way to the front door of his apartment to retrieve it. No thanks. Does not happen. On trips to rehab, he would grip the armrests in the back seat, bracing himself for every bump in the road, fearing even the smallest one would knock his knee. When the doctors asked him to straighten his leg at the hospital, he wanted to shake his head and refuse, convinced that the stitches would tear open at that moment.

“Honestly, there were times when I just wanted to scream and cry,” Hines said The Athletics, in which he spoke publicly for the first time about his final months. “It was just rehab, man, but it was really hard.”

This wasn’t supposed to be what August looked like for Hines, the crafty sixth-year running back and special teams standout for the Buffalo Bills. He would help a contender prepare for a Super Bowl run.

After trading from the Colts in November 2022, after his two touchdown returns put the house in Orchard Park in the regular-season finale — six days after teammate Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest on the field in Cincinnati — and after taking on a bigger role in practices in the offseason, Hines began to feel part of something special in Buffalo.

Last season he studied the script for two hours every evening; now he knew it cold and scored hundreds on the quizzes that the coaches passed out. He no longer needed his position coach, Kelly Skipper, to translate the play calls from what his old coaches called them in Indianapolis. He saw his representatives grow in practice. According to Hines, 2023 would be the breakout season he has been looking for since he first entered the league.

Then, two days before the Fourth of July, he boarded a Sea-Doo and lost a year of his prime.

The most devastating part?

All he did, Hines points out, was fill the tank with gasoline. The ride took a few minutes at most.

It wasn’t the accident, but the surgery that would leave Hines with what he calls “two weeks of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life.” Meanwhile, he found himself in a brief but bitter contract dispute with the Bills.

“You know what I say to people?” Hines says, going back to that day. “I literally tell people my life is like that movie ‘Final Destination.'”

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He hadn’t been on the Sea-Doos at all that day. In fact, he hadn’t been there once all weekend.

Hines prefers wakesurfing, between waves right behind the boat, and that’s what he did for nearly two hours on July 2. He had rented a house with some friends on Lake Norman, just north of Charlotte, and was happy to let everyone else whiz around the water on the Sea-Doos. His training camp started in a few weeks.

But after a while, when the Sea-Doos were running low on fuel, Hines thought he would jump on and refuel him. He was the only professional athlete in the group, the one with the $9 million contract, and he wanted to help.

“People said the gas was low,” he remembers, “and I was a good guy. I said, ‘Okay, I’ll just step up and pay.’

After filling the tank at the marina, Hines began driving the Sea-Doo back to the house, intending to get back on the boat. According to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission accident report, Hines stopped in a no-wake zone behind a row of boats. He didn’t get far. There was a boat coming his way so he tried to avoid it.

“I tried to go to the right side of the boat,” Hines told police that day, according to the accident report. “When I moved to the right, I got hit.”

Another Sea-Doo crashed into his right side, throwing Hines into the water.

According to the report, it was Dylan Peebles, a close friend and former track teammate of Hines at North Carolina State, who was driving the other Sea-Doo. Peebles was later charged with careless and reckless conduct and for failing to comply with proper boating safety requirements.

“I drove straight and didn’t see a boat in front of me,” Peebles told police, according to the report. “Then my friend saw it and turned around and I hit him as he turned around. He was driving slowly (and) I was going 20 miles per hour.”

Peebles was driving between 30 and 40 miles per hour, according to the report, and the total damage from the two Sea-Doos was estimated at $17,000. Within two months of the accident, Hines hired an attorney to explore his legal options.

“I think the facts here are what they are,” said Brad Sohn, who represents Hines. “No. 1, there is absolutely nothing to indicate that Nyheim did anything wrong here. And your heart goes out to anyone who works as hard as he does to be the player he is in the NFL.

Both Hines and Sohn declined to discuss details of the accident further, citing looming lawsuits.

Even in the days following the incident, Hines didn’t think he had suffered a serious injury, certainly nothing that would cost him time on the football field. Both knees hurt a little. He froze them that night.

Four or five days later, Hines says, he went to a nearby track for a workout. When he started jogging, his left knee hurt. “Strange,” he said to himself. “I was hit on my right side.”

Something wasn’t right. He called his agent, who performed an MRI.

The results were heartbreaking. Hines discovered he had torn the ACL and LCL in his left knee. His season was over before it ever started.

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Hines knows what everyone was thinking when the news broke at the end of July: NFL player injured in jet ski accident, out for season.

He was probably messing around. Being reckless. Being immature.

“It looks terrible, and that was very difficult,” he says. “The opportunity I had (this season), and honestly, not even on the jet skis. If I were to make jumps or be stupid, I wouldn’t even be really angry (about this). But it’s the fact that I literally didn’t even ride the jet skis. I just refueled.”

The lesson was hard to swallow. Hines has been dedicated to his body all season and religious when it comes to his routine: needle therapy, hours in NormaTec compression boots, nightly massages, Epsom salt baths. Before the accident, he had missed just one game in his five-year NFL career, and he says he has only missed six dating back to high school. He once completed a three-year stretch in Indianapolis without missing a single practice, a ridiculously rare durability for a running back.

All the work he has put in since he entered the competition, with the aim of extending his best time as long as possible, and then this happens: a freak, untimely accident with serious consequences, an accident that cost him an entire season and threatened his career.

“It’s something I’ll grow from,” Hines said. “I didn’t do anything wrong, but I can’t control everything around me… that’s a position I won’t put myself in, at least until I’m done playing.”

Hines’ surgery was performed on August 8 by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles; Rehabilitation started two days later. The first few weeks were a huge pain: it hurt to sleep, it hurt to move, it hurt to do anything. He is making progress slowly. “I’m through the worst of it,” he says, “but Lord have mercy, the worst was terrible.”

Unsurprisingly, the Bills were not happy when they got word of the accident. In the spring, as offseason workouts were winding down, since-fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey had made it clear to general manager Brandon Beane how excited he was to open up more of the playbook to Hines in 2023. That’s what Beane had in mind when he closed the deal with the Colts last year, calling Hines a minute before the trade deadline and asking him, “We’re happy to have you, can you be on a flight in three hours?”

The disappointment became apparent when Beane met with reporters on the eve of training camp.

“It’s not like I can go out and find another Nyheim Hines,” he said.

Hines had renegotiated his deal with the Bills before the season, agreeing to a two-year, $9 million deal through 2024, spreading out a number of incentives — a signing bonus, training bonuses — over time. But because the accident occurred outside the team facility, the Bills placed him on the NFI list, which technically means the team doesn’t have to pay him anything.

Suddenly, Hines was out millions of dollars.

After months of back and forth, the two sides agreed on a smaller amount that both sides felt comfortable with.

“We were both upset, both parties were upset,” Hines said. “I didn’t expect this to happen. They didn’t expect this to happen. We both had big plans for myself. And they know I hold myself accountable, and they knew this will kill me more than it will kill them.”

The case is solved, a sobering lesson learned. Hines expects to pick up where he left off in Buffalo next year.

“They ultimately treated me well and took care of me,” he says, “and I’m a member of the Buffalo Bills and I’m looking forward to getting back there next year and earning the right to win.” ”

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He misses it all, even those long, hard, grueling Wednesday workouts in the bitter cold that he used to hate.

“I will never take Wednesday practice for granted again,” Hines said.

He’s looking at the bills on “NFL Sunday Ticket.” He goes to rehabilitation. He plays guitar three hours a day, is working on getting his real estate license and is taking online classes in the state of North Carolina, where he will receive his bachelor’s degree in a few hours.

“I’ve never taken football for granted, but after this I know what this game means to me,” Hines said. “I would do anything to be back now.”

The Bills could use him. A trendy preseason Super Bowl pick, the Bills are just 6-5, currently out of the AFC playoff picture. After a two-game skid earlier this month, Dorsey was fired.

One thing Hines has promised himself: He’s not getting on another Sea-Doo and he’s not wakesurfing until his NFL career is completely over.

“I don’t want to say it was bad luck because I don’t really believe in luck, but hopefully the Lord is just trying to prepare me for something because it’s been hard,” Hines said. “I know I won’t forget what I went through, especially the pain.

“This is going to be a great story when it’s over, I’m going to make sure of it.”

(Illustration: Samuel Richardson / The Athletics; Photos: Nic Antaya and Bryan M. Bennett / Getty Images)