Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay makes 1st trip to training camp since his December fall

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Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay makes 1st trip to training camp since his December fall

2024-07-29 07:47 Last Updated At：07:51

WESTFIELD, Ind. (AP) — Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay returned to the sideline Sunday, making his first public appearance since being injured in a fall at his home in early December.

The 65-year-old owner told reporters he's continuing to rehabilitate from two subsequent surgeries. He remained seated in his golf cart during Indy's third training camp practice and is expected to be seated in a wheelchair when one of his former players, Dwight Freeney, is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next weekend in Canton, Ohio.

“It's great to see you guys, the fans and to be out here,” Irsay said. “I'm feeling great, you know, just trying to get this left leg stronger, which it will be. It's great to be out here and I'm so excited for the season and really excited for the Hall of Fame as well as for Dwight.”

Irsay has battled health issues in recent years, including a respiratory illness in January, following his fall.

Police officers from Carmel, Indiana, a northern suburb of Indy, responded to a 911 call from Irsay's home Dec. 8. According to the police report, the officers found Irsay breathing but unresponsive and with a bluish skin tone.

Longtime team executive Pete Ward, the report said, told officers he was worried Irsay was suffering from congestive heart failure and that Irsay's nurse had said Irsay's oxygen level was low, his breathing was labored and he was “mostly” unconscious.

Irsay has undergone two subsequent surgeries — one to relieve numbness in his left leg and weakness in his left quad caused by a nerve issue in his back, the other for a hematoma.

As a result, Irsay, who usually addresses his team in the locker room following games, had not been seen publicly — until Sunday.

“It's awesome,” former Colts player and assistant coach Cato June said. “I mean it's been a while. It's been a while. But it's always a blessing to see somebody in good spirits.”

Even as Irsay faces his own hurdles in making a full recovery, he's also hopeful the Colts can make a comeback on the field this season, too.

They have not been to the playoffs since the 2020 season, have not won an opening day game since 2013 and are hoping Anthony Richardson becomes the first quarterback to start consecutive season openers for Indianapolis since Andrew Luck in 2015 and 2016.

Injuries limited Richardson to four starts and forced him to leave three of those games early last season. He had season-ending surgery on his throwing shoulder in October and much of the discussion this offseason has been about Richardson finding ways to protect himself from getting hurt.

On Sunday, fans cheered when Richardson was running on a play and the roars grew louder when he ran out of bounds.

Irsay, though, doesn't want his star player playing it safe.

“That tackle that happened could happen at any time,” Irsay said, referring to the play that ended Richardson's rookie season. “I think he has to seize the opportunity to use his feet when he can and protect himself as well. He knows that but at the same time, we drafted him because we know he is dangerous (with his feet) and he can pick up yards at critical times. I think his style is great.”

If all goes well for Irsay, he could soon be throwing footballs to the fans. At least, that's the hope for Irsay.

“I've heard there may be a drone dropping them before I can do that,” he joked. ”But I'm very close. It's frustrating because the left leg just doesn't have the push-off yet that I need. I mean I can stand up and those sorts of things, but in terms of walking and that sort of thing it's hard to do. It's hard to say how far I'm away from that, but it's not far."

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Death toll in attack on Christmas market in Germany rises to 5 and more than 200 injured

2024-12-21 23:06 Last Updated At：23:10

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germans on Saturday mourned the victims and their shaken sense of security after a Saudi doctor intentionally drove into a Christmas market teeming with holiday shoppers, killing at least five people, including a small child, and wounding at least 200 others.

Authorities arrested a 50-year-old man at the site of the attack in Magdeburg on Friday evening and took him into custody for questioning. He has lived in Germany since 2006, practicing medicine in Bernburg, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Magdeburg. officials said.

The state governor, Reiner Haseloff, told reporters that the death toll rose to five from a previous figure of two and that more than 200 people in total were injured.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that nearly 40 of them "are so seriously injured that we must be very worried about them.”

“There is no more peaceful and cheerful place than a Christmas market,” Scholz said. “What a terrible act it is to injure and kill so many people there with such brutality.”

Neurosurgeon Mahmoud Elenbaby said some 80 patients were brought to Magdeburg’s university hospital on Friday night.

“We managed to stabilize most of them, but many are still in intensive care, and some are also in critical condition,” Elenbaby told The Associated Press as he dashed into the hospital cafeteria to buy himself a cola.

Several German media outlets identified the suspect as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Mourners lit candles and placed flowers outside a church near the market on the cold and gloomy day. Several people stopped and cried. A Berlin church choir whose members witnessed a previous Christmas market attack in 2016 sang Amazing Grace, a hymn about God's mercy, offering their prayers and solidarity with the victims.

There were still no answers Saturday as to what motivated the man to drive his black BMW into a crowd in the eastern German city.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect shared dozens of tweets and retweets daily focusing on anti-Islam themes, criticizing the religion and congratulating Muslims who left the faith.

He also accused German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he said was the “Islamism of Europe.”

The violence shocked Germany and the city, bringing its mayor to the verge of tears and marring a festive event that’s part of a centuries-old German tradition. It prompted several other German towns to cancel their weekend Christmas markets as a precaution and out of solidarity with Magdeburg’s loss. Berlin kept its markets open but has increased its police presence at them.

Germany has suffered a string of extremist attacks in recent years, including a knife attack that killed three people and wounded eight at a festival in the western city of Solingen in August.

Magdeburg is a city of about 240,000 people, west of Berlin, that serves as Saxony-Anhalt’s capital. Friday’s attack came eight years after an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a crowded Christmas market in Berlin, killing 13 people and injuring many others. The attacker was killed days later in a shootout in Italy.

Chancellor Scholz and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser traveled to Magdeburg on Saturday, and a memorial service is to take place in the city cathedral in the evening. Faeser ordered flags lowered to half-staff at federal buildings across the country.

Verified bystander footage distributed by the German news agency dpa showed the suspect’s arrest at a tram stop in the middle of the road. A nearby police officer pointing a handgun at the man shouted at him as he lay prone, his head arched up slightly. Other officers swarmed around the suspect and took him into custody.

Thi Linh Chi Nguyen, a 34-year-old manicurist from Vietnam whose salon is located in a mall across from the Christmas market, was on the phone during a break when she heard loud bangs and thought at first they were fireworks. She then saw a car drive through the market at high speed. People screamed and a child was thrown into the air by the car.

Shaking as she described the horror of what she witnessed, she recalled seeing the car bursting out of the market and turning right onto Ernst-Reuter-Allee street and then coming to a standstill at the tram stop where the suspect was arrested.

The number of injured people was overwhelming.

“My husband and I helped them for two hours. He ran back home and grabbed as many blankets as he could find because they didn’t have enough to cover the injured people. And it was so cold," she said.

The market itself was still cordoned off Saturday with red-and-white tape and police vans every 50 meters (yards). Police with machine pistols guarded every entry to the market. Some thermal security blankets still lay on the street.

Christmas markets are a German holiday tradition cherished since the Middle Ages, now successfully exported to much of the Western world.

Moulson reported from Berlin and Gera from Warsaw, Poland.