Injured college football player squeezes mom’s hand

Tennessee State linebacker Christion Abercrombie, who played at Westlake High School in south Fulton County, is in critical condition in a Nashville, Tenn., hospital.

Credit: Channel 2 Action News

Credit: Channel 2 Action News

Tennessee State linebacker Christion Abercrombie, who played at Westlake High School in south Fulton County, is in critical condition in a Nashville, Tenn., hospital.

A college football player from metro Atlanta who sustained a critical head injury in a game is showing progress.

In a tweet, the mother of Tennessee State University linebacker Christion Abercrombie said her son “is moving in a positive direction.”

“Christion is so strong,” Staci Abercrombie said this week in the post. “He squeezed my hand so hard, my knuckles were popping.”

Christion Abercrombie, who played high school football at Westlake in south Fulton County, was injured in a Sept. 29 game against Vanderbilt.

The 20-year-old sophomore linebacker was “taking on a blocker” when he was injured in the second quarter, TSU coach Rod Reed said on his radio show the day after the game. Reed said there “wasn’t anything malicious” about the play on which Christion Abercrombie was injured.

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The player has been at Vanderbilt Medical Center in critical condition since the injury. No specifics have been released on his diagnosis.

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"(Christion) is showing improvement, doing some things that are really positive," Reed told the Tennessean newspaper. "All those things that he is doing shows that his brain is functioning in some capacity, and those were the things that we were concerned with. I'm really happy for him and his family right now."

In another tweet this week, Stacie Abercrombie urged her followers to “pray bold prayers.”

“Christion,” she said, “will be restored.”