By now, you’ve probably seen the viral video of the New England Patriots fan who celebrated the team’s Super Bowl LI comeback a little too hard and broke his leg in the process.
Well, we asked that fan, Nicholas DePalmer, to tell us how it all went down, and good news — his leg isn’t broken. His Patriots are Super Bowl champions, too.
Here’s the email and some photos that DePalmer sent us Thursday night.
“I’m from Portland, Maine, but had a Super Bowl party at my beach house here in San Diego, and a lot of people left when the Patriots were down big. I just knew they would come back and kept my eyes glued to the television cheering — there are actually tons of Patriots fans and Patriots bars out here on the West Coast.
“After Tom Brady tied the game with a pass to Danny Amendola on the two-point conversion, I couldn’t contain my excitement and jumped in the air before coming down on my steel coffee table — tibia first! It looks like I’m smiling, but I’m really clinching my teeth … you can hear the crack and see the extended version of the video here, but it was so painful.
“It looks hilarious because my friend Frankie in the Atlanta jersey was just standing over there pointing and laughing his ass off at me while I was grimacing in excruciating pain — when my girlfriend Natalie (nurse) realized that it was serious, she ran over to the rescue. After the overtime coin toss, she helped me up, grabbed me a beer, gave me some ice and put my leg up on a pillow so I could watch overtime in pain, but it was so worth it!
“On a scale to 1-10, the pain was a 20, even worse than when I fractured the same foot last year — lots of burning when standing. After going to the hospital, (I found out) my leg wasn’t actually broken — the X-rays revealed a right tibia contusion, and (the doctors) sent me home with a ton of pain medication.
“I’m pretty bummed that I’ll be missing my basketball league games for a few weeks, but it was so worth the Patriots’ win. I have barely slept all week from just thinking about the game and can’t stop watching all the highlights! My favorite player has always been Julian Edelman, I’m so happy for him!!”
You know who really had a rough night? Frankie. We’d all take a bruised tibia over watching our team blow a 25-point lead in the Super Bowl any day.
