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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — DaVon Hamilton couldn’t sleep.
The debilitating pain pulsing through his back propelled the Jacksonville Jaguars’ training staff to haul in a pool lounge chair into his hotel room in Detroit on Aug. 17, 2023. He needed the almost 7-foot chair because he couldn’t lie flat.
The Jaguars had just finished two joint practices with the Lions, one of which Hamilton sat out.
The pain didn't subside, and when it came time for the preseason game against the Lions to end the week, it took Hamilton almost 90 minutes to pack his suitcase. Then, trainers had to assist him onto the team bus.
Hamilton couldn't play, spending the preseason game in pain in the locker room. He had been getting treatment for similar symptoms since before training camp began, but this was much, much worse.
It wasn't until later that night, when his legs went numb and he couldn't stand on his own to get off the team plane that the 6-foot-4, 335-pound professional athlete who makes a living colliding with men just as big, or bigger, got scared.
"I need help to walk, period," Hamilton told ESPN. "I had two or three people helping me. So, I'm just getting held up by a couple trainers and [the Jaguars' medical staff] is like, 'We need to get you to the hospital now.'"
Had that decision been delayed much longer, or had one of the top neurosurgeons in the Southeast not fortuitously been on site for a rarely scheduled Sunday morning surgery, Hamilton could have been paralyzed by a growing infection — or worse.
"I've never been more — I don't want to use the word scared," said Jaguars team physician Kevin Kaplan, who later presented Hamilton's case because of its rarity to assembled medical staff at the 2026 NFL combine. "The way it unfolded, it was a scary situation."
Nearly three years later, the Jaguars' starting nose tackle is coming off arguably his best season since being drafted out of Ohio State in 2020 — and is now ready to share his experience in hopes of helping others in similar situations.
"I had a lot of time to reflect," Hamilton said. "A lot of time really spent with God … understanding God has a plan for me and that this is no random event, but something that … I can learn from, inspire others with."
AFTER LOSING THE ability to walk on his own, Hamilton was taken to Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville.
Kaplan ordered multiple tests, one of which was an MRI. He then phoned Bradley Wallace, the hospital's chief of neurosurgery and one of the NFL's unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants who are on the sideline at every game to provide concussion evaluations.
While Kaplan was explaining Hamilton's situation, Wallace was startled by the MRI results: a spinal epidural abscess with severe spinal cord compression.
In layman's terms: an infection in the spinal canal. As the infection increases and pus fills the canal, it puts pressure on the spinal cord, which causes pain, weakness, numbness and — if not caught in time and treated — potential permanent paralysis.
Per the National Institute of Health, the condition is rarely seen in young, healthy people and is more common in older patients and those who have risk factors or comorbidities. According to an NIH review of 12 studies involving 1,099 patients, intravenous drug use is the leading risk factor, and diabetes is the leading comorbidity — neither of which applied to Hamilton.
The NIH cited further studies that early diagnosis is crucial, and a delay in diagnosis and treatment can increase residual weakness or permanent neurologic deficit.
It has a morbidity rate of approximately 5% of patients, per the NIH, because of sepsis or other issues.
Wallace, who said he is rarely at the hospital for a 6:30 a.m. Sunday surgery, postponed a previously scheduled surgery and rushed Hamilton into the operating room instead.
"This is a professional athlete. He cannot lift his legs off the bed," Wallace said. "He was almost paralyzed at this point.
"This was a minutes-can-make-a-difference kind of thing."
WALLACE PERFORMED A minimally invasive surgery, making half-inch incisions at the bottom, middle and top of the area of the abscess to drain the infection, instead of opening Hamilton’s entire back so Hamilton could have a chance to resume his NFL career, provided there was no residual impact from the infection.
Two days later, Hamilton was up and walking around the ICU. He showed no signs of lingering paralysis. He spent a week in the hospital and underwent an eight-week course of antibiotics, which he received through a PICC line — a long, thin tube that is threaded into a vein near the heart. The team placed him on injured reserve Aug. 31, and there was uncertainty when he would return to the field.
He was still weak, partly due to the 30 pounds he lost in August and September, and tired easily, so he couldn't do much at first while recuperating from the most significant injury of his football career. The only other surgery he had undergone was to repair a broken bone in his foot at Ohio State.
The ordeal also made things hard on his wife, Julia, whom Hamilton called "the most important part of all this." The couple had welcomed their first child, son Ace, in June. Managing a newborn with a husband recovering from surgery was challenging, even with help from their families and fellow members of their church.
"I was trying to juggle mainly the mental for him," Julia said. "It wasn't until probably a year later that I finally sat down and was like, 'How do I feel like this impacted me?' I definitely feel like I lost some bonding moments with our firstborn, but at the same time, with DaVon being home for the majority of that season, I think it helped us create a closer family bond."
Hamilton didn't shuck new dad duty, though. He couldn't walk around carrying his son, but he could feed him and change diapers.
"The hardest part, I thought, would be football because a lot of the time, [athletes'] identities can be centered around something they've done the majority of their life at a high level," Julia said. "But for him, it was more so like, 'Oh, I'm feeling incompetent in being a father right now.'"
"… I think, honestly, helping Ace was like his way of feeling like, 'OK, I'm still capable of doing things, even if I'm not on the football field.'"
Still, Hamilton was determined to get back on the field after surgery. He was up and walking the day after, though he needed a walker at first. He gradually grew stronger with help from physical therapy and was discharged in a week.
By early October, he was back in the weight room at the Jaguars' facility. He was able to exercise using only light weights and resistance band training.
"It was joyous [seeing Hamilton back in the facility]," said Jeff Ferguson, the Jaguars' vice president of player health and performance. "So many folks just coming by and dapping up and hugging.
"He worked hard every day, and he pushed the limit every single day. And there were times when I would have to pull him back and say, 'No, we're not doing that today.' And he'd give me that look."
THE JAGUARS ACTIVATED Hamilton from IR on Oct. 28, 2023, and he played 14 snaps in the Jaguars’ 20-10 road victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers the following day.
"I was very determined to come back and play," Hamilton said. "I wasn't allowing that to even seep into my mind that I wasn't going to play because I was training to that level to try to be back. Did I feel like I was necessarily fully healthy at that point? Probably not, but I was just very determined at that point that I'm going to play football again.
"And if it is just my last year and things don't work out, that's fine. But at least I got myself back to the point where I can be back on the field."
Teammates weren't aware of the seriousness of Hamilton's condition at the time, and Hamilton didn't talk much about it when he returned to the facility. Defensive end Josh Hines-Allen knows now, however, and said he admires the strength Hamilton showed, not only to get back on the field but also to mentally overcome a potentially life-altering event.
"Bro fought life or death," Hines-Allen said. "So, this football stuff doesn't matter. I'm playing football because I love the game, and I see value in it. Do I love the game more than I love my life? Probably not. For me, Wesley [Hines-Allen's son who battled leukemia] … took so much out of me that my priorities switched.
"For [Hamilton], it's the same thing. So to see him play at a high level because he chose to do that. He chose to train hard. He chose to push himself again. He chose to still be at that high level. So, I got a lot of respect for him and everything that he does and his family as well."
Hamilton, who had signed a three-year, $34.5 million contract extension in April 2023, played in eight games in 2023 and finished with 12 tackles. The following season, he had a career-high 62 tackles.
Hamilton then played arguably the best football of his career in 2025, when he anchored the Jaguars' top-ranked run defense and posted 38 tackles and a sack. He also made one of the biggest plays of the season when he knocked down quarterback Geno Smith’s 2-point conversion pass to secure the Jaguars’ 30-29 overtime victory against the Las Vegas Raiders.
"He just does his job to the best of his ability every single day without saying a negative word or anything," Jaguars coach Liam Coen said. "He cares about all the right things. A lot of his job is selfless, helping others and helping get other people freed up in the run game and the way that he can two-gap and play sometimes gap-and-a-half football. … The Raiders game, the 2-point conversion, all those things, you look back on D-Ham making huge plays for us this year. I think he's just getting better and better."
"For him to have the season he's had, to be where he's at in his career [despite his medical issue], it's pretty special."
AT THE ANNUAL NFL combine, team doctors and athletic trainers meet to present interesting cases and share ideas and experiences. Kaplan, who is entering his 18th season with the Jaguars, presented Hamilton’s case this past February in Indianapolis. He hadn’t seen a spinal epidural abscess since medical school training and knew it was rare in a healthy person, but maybe someone else had encountered it.
Hamilton is still the only one.
"After presenting to our [physicians] society, all of the doctors I spoke with, including the most tenured and newer physicians, had not seen this in an NFL athlete," he said.
Kaplan said there's little risk of the infection recurring, but he, Wallace and Hamilton still have no idea why this happened. There's no way to know for sure how the bacteria entered his body and why it migrated to his spinal cord.
Hamilton, now 29 years old, said the reasons this happened don't bother him. He found his way back and is poised to anchor the Jaguars' run defense again in 2026, which is the final season of the contract he signed in 2023.
Now, he just wants to help others find their way back.
"I'm extremely blessed," Hamilton said. "I feel like Jesus has given me such a testimony to be able to share with other people. It's crazy. Not a lot of people come back from even different types of injuries, let alone this one. It's never really seen in football players or healthy people in general. …
"It really helped me grow as a person more than anything."
