Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey was rushed to the hospital Thursday after experiencing a minor seizure during a weight training session at practice, a team source confirmed to FOXSports.com.
“I am OK. Thanks to everyone who has shown their concern,” Shockey said in a message posted on his Twitter account. “Don’t worry about me. I will be fine.”
With the assistance of paramedics, Shockey walked under his own power to a waiting ambulance before being taken to a local hospital. He is undergoing tests.
According to the source, the seizure lasted up to a minute, but the tight end seemed fine afterward, walking out with team personnel under his own power.
“I talked to Jeremy from the hospital and the good news is he’s feeling better and everything looks real good,’’ Saints coach Sean Payton told neworleans.com Thursday afternoon.
“He’ll likely finish up his tests and spend the night in the hospital. They don’t know if it was dehydration or what. That’s what they’re going through right now. They just want to make sure it’s nothing more significant than that.’’
A player who wished to remain anonymous told the website, “It was a little scary; it looked like maybe a mild seizure or a full body cramp or something.”
“There were a decent amount of guys in the weight room at the time. At first nobody really knew what was going on, but the trainers took control of the situation after a while,” the player said.
“He was shaking and everything, and he was basically out of it for probably a minute or so, but it seemed longer. After he started coming back everything was pretty much all right. He seemed aware and everything seemed OK after a while. He got up and was walking around.”
The team source told FOX Sports that Shockey, 29, had completed his workout earlier in the day and had shown no signs that anything physically was wrong after a very good week of workouts. The source also said Shockey has never shown any other signs of epilepsy previously.
The Giants traded Shockey to the Saints after the 2007 season. He scored a touchdown in the Saints’ Super Bowl victory over the Colts.
The report says Shockey was hospitalized in Las Vegas during Memorial Day weekend in 2009, suffering from dehydration.
Shockey was drafted by the Giants in 2002. He missed the Super Bowl XLII win over the Patriots with a broken leg.
With AP