Former NFL player Derek Wolfe reveals he was ‘temporarily paralyzed before playing TWO weeks later’

Former NFL defensive end Derek Wolfe revealed he played just two weeks after being temporarily paralyzed while a member of the Denver Broncos.

The Super Bowl champion told Joe Rogan on his podcast that a violent hit caused him be temporarily paralyzed  

In August 2013, Wolfe bruised his spinal cord following a violent hit during an NFL game with the Broncos which left him paralyzed temporarily before shortly resuming on the gridiron.

The incident occurred in a preseason game vs. Seattle at Lumen Field in a helmet-to-helmet hit during the beginning of his sophomore season in Denver.

Wolfe was taken in an ambulance – which came on the field – on a stretcher to the ER. 

Former Super Bowl champion Derek Wolfe revealed he played shortly after being paralyzed

Wolfe suffered a helmet-to-helmet hit during a preseason game on August 17, 2013 in Seattle

‘I was paralyzed for three hours and played two weeks later,’ Wolfe said on the Joe Rogan Experience. 

‘I couldn’t move. I was just stuck in the ground. It was like I was melted, it was the weirdest feeling, man.’

‘The doctors wanted me to stay in the hospital, but the team doctors were like “you’re good, we can go” on the team plane back to Denver.

‘It was miserable, every time I got touched my arms would go numb… and I’m a defensive lineman so my head’s getting hit every play.

Wolfe was awake the entire time and felt numb from the nose down until several hours later, sensation returned to his body. 

Three months after returning to the field, Wolfe had a seizure after a lack of ‘fresh blood’ to his brain after the bruised spinal cord caused a bruise at the base of his brain stem. 

‘That’s when I realized man, they don’t care about us,’ he said.

Wolfe played 10 seasons in the NFL, winning a Super Bowl while in Denver between 2012-19, before joining Baltimore as a free agent in 2020. 

He played two seasons with the Ravens before retiring on July 28, 2022. 

Wolfe, then in his sophomore season in the NFL, was stretchered off into an ambulance

He lay motionless, unable to feel anything below his nose for several hours following the hit