{"id":302984,"date":"2023-12-07T08:44:09","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T14:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=302984"},"modified":"2023-12-11T00:23:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T06:23:03","slug":"micro-preemie-derick-hall-seattle-seahawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/micro-preemie-derick-hall-seattle-seahawks\/","title":{"rendered":"Born a micro-preemie, Seattle Seahawks player Derick Hall tackled and beat the odds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Looking at Derick Hall now, a 6’3″, 254-lb. <\/span>linebacker<\/span><\/a> for the Seattle Seahawks, people might be amazed to discover that he was born as a 2 lb. 9 oz micro-preemie. <\/span><\/p>\n

Hall\u2019s mother, Stacy Gooden-Crandle, recalled<\/a> in an article posted to the Seahawks website: “He was born at 23 \u00bd weeks, and it was a scary, scary time. Me being a 26-year-old, single mother, I didn’t know what to expect, what to think, and the doctors were saying that, if he lived through the night, he’d be a vegetable.\u201d He was reportedly<\/a> given a 1% chance to live and had to be resuscitated at birth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because of Hall\u2019s extreme prematurity, he dealt with severe health issues as an infant, including a brain bleed. He was placed on life support for a week. <\/span>But Hall\u2019s mother was persistent and fought for her son\u2019s life. <\/span><\/p>\n

Though Hall’s mother was <\/span>told<\/span><\/a> many times that her son would never do the things other children do, even if he survived the preemie growth stage, Hall says his mother chose courage instead of fear. \u201cShe just said, ‘OK, if that’s what I have to deal with, that’s something I’ll deal with.’\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Hall explained that his mother was also told during her pregnancy with him that her own life was at risk. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe sacrificed a lot of things for me to get to where I am today,\u201d he said. \u201cI’ll be forever grateful for her for the things she did in my young childhood all the way up to where I am today. They said it was either her or me from the jump, before she even had me, and she said if she had to pick, it was me.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n