The bleachers were packed in the stadium at E.A. Laney High School on the evening of Oct. 3, 2025. The crowd was hyped. And 17-year-old Kellen Cook of Wilmington was ready for the biggest night of high school: His senior homecoming football game.

Cook — a multi-sport athlete and a captain that night — went out for the coin toss. The game began.

Three plays later, Cook felt an opponent’s leg bash into his leg and heard a crunch as loud as a gunshot.

Then the pain took over.

“I remember screaming, falling to the ground, and closing my eyes because I didn't want to look at my leg,” Cook said. “I knew if looked at it, I probably would have passed out.”

Cook remembers calling for his mom — and wondering if he’d still be able to attend country singer Jon Pardi’s concert the next night.

Anyone looking at his leg knew that the answer was no.

Cook had broken two bones, which had torn through his skin and were now exposed, creating a medical emergency called an open tibia-fibula fracture that can result in bone infection without rapid care.

He needed intravenous antibiotics, wound debridement (removal of dead and unhealthy tissue, bacteria, and debris), and surgery to stabilize the bones and repair soft tissue, and he needed them as soon as possible.

Soon Cook was in an ambulance, being rushed to the emergency department at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center. He doesn’t remember feeling scared. Instead, he remembers that the first responders let him play Jon Pardi music to ease his mind.

When he arrived at the hospital, Cook was treated by emergency medicine doctor Dr. Robert Young, whose empathy still stands out to Cook a year after the ordeal: “I could tell he felt really bad for me,” Cook said.

Cook — who still didn’t comprehend the severity of the situation — thought he’d get a cast and go home. But Young recognized that the open fracture required urgent surgical care and called in Dr. Matthew Braswell, a foot and ankle specialist who cares for patients at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.

Braswell explained that Cook’s future mobility was at risk if he didn’t have surgery, and that his infection risk was growing by the hour.

Cook and his parents decided to go ahead with surgery that night. So Braswell performed open reduction and internal fixation (ORIF) surgery, realigning Cook’s broken bones and implanting a titanium rod and screws into the bones to hold them back in place.

“I was worried I would never walk again, but I woke up and it was like a brand-new leg,” Cook said.

He spent the next four days in the hospital recovering from surgery and being monitored due to the high risk of infection in open tibia fractures.

Beyond two short stints as a baby, Cook had never been hospitalized. Coincidentally, it was the same doctor, Dr. Joseph Pino, who admitted him to New Hanover Regional Medical Center each time. Cook was too young to remember the first two visits. This time, the care he received stuck with him.

“Everybody cared about me and constantly checked on me,” Cook said. “And they didn’t just check on me, but the people I cared for and cared about — they made sure they were taken care of, too.”

Like when a nurse correctly guessed that Cook’s mom had been neglecting her own needs to care for her son, and made sure she got a parent tray with every one of his meals so she could keep her strength up. Or when the staff welcomed Cook’s girlfriend, teammates, athletic trainers and coaches in to cheer Cook up.

Cook began physical therapy while in the hospital, but his hardest work began after discharge.

That’s when he was rolled into Novant Health Rehabilitation Center - Scotts Hill in a wheelchair to meet with physical therapist Kyle Varoskovic.

Varoskovic’s first question for Cook wasn’t about his leg — it was about his feelings.

Varoskovic knew that Cook’s leg had been violently injured and he’d needed emergency surgery. “Then there’s the fact that it happened during his senior year at the big game, and it was the biggest injury he’d ever had in his sports career. … That’s a life-changing, big thing that would be scary for a lot of people,” Varoskovic said.

Varoskovic works with many patients facing sudden, unexpected changes to their abilities due to injury, accident or stroke. In any of these situations, healing is shaped by how you process what you’ve been through, Varoskovic explained.

“Sometimes you experience something like this and you’re in fight-or-flight mode, or taking it one day at a time. Other times you’re grieving, reconciling, mourning the loss of your identity that’s been taken away momentarily. And other times, it’s optimism: ‘I can restore and rehab, and either find a new normal or get back to myself,’” he said.

Cook was in the latter category. “He was willing to be brave,” Varoskovic said, “and he was ready to work.”

During their first appointment, Cook stood without assistance for the first time after surgery. Over the next eight months, Varoskovic helped Cook progress to walking, jumping and running.

To get there, Varoskovic set at least one attainable short-term goal for Cook each week. “It takes months to rehab, and being consistent with doing small repetitive exercises is not that rewarding in my mind,” Varoskovic said. “You have to have small victories along the way.”

But Varoskovic said Cook’s diligence, commitment and motivation are what really helped him make those gains.

Even when Cook required a second surgery two months after his first because his wound wasn’t healing properly, “he didn’t lose his sense of humor,” Varoskovic said. “He was able to maintain optimism in a dark time that would be challenging for a lot of people. I’m really impressed with his work ethic.”

Cook was injured in October 2025, and by July 2026, he was playing spikeball and football on the beach. “It’s crazy to think how far I’ve come,” he said.

He didn’t get to finish the big game, and his senior year didn’t go exactly how he had planned. But at least Cook got to check one goal off his list: In March, he finally got to see Jon Pardi in concert — and he stood for the entire show, a feat he couldn’t have imagined just a few months before.

A year after his injury, Cook’s working on his associate’s degree in science at Cape Fear Community College, with plans to eventually complete dental school and become an orthodontist.

Although he’ll be working on teeth, not limbs, Cook sees an overlap: “In orthodontics, you’re fixing something that someone may consider a problem and making them happy, just like Dr. Braswell did for me,” Cook said.

And now he has role models for the type of health professional he wants to be someday.

“They made me feel great,” Cook said of his health care team, including EMTs Chelsea and Donald; Dr. Young and Dr. Braswell; nurses Elizabeth, Stacy, Cameron and Becca; nursing assistant Cheyenne; and Varoskovic. Because of them, “I was never worried, never scared, and knew it was going to be OK.”