It was bad enough when Barkevious Mingo couldn't catch his breath early on in Thursday's 24-6 victory over the Lions. But when he began spitting up blood on the sidelines, he knew something had to be wrong. "During the game and after the game (I was spitting up blood),'' Mingo said after watching practice Saturday from the sidelines. "I was a little bit, but not a lot.'' Had Mingo remained on the field during the game and taken another blow to the chest, he could've died, according to noted Dr. Clark Fuller, Director of Thoracic Surgery at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Ca. He said Mingo had already torn some small blood vessels to the cause the bleeding, "and if you tear some larger ones, the chest cavity is an area where you could bleed to death and nobody ever sees a drop of blood on the ground.'' Mingo is fairly certain he suffered the injury on his first play of the game, while he was covering the opening kickoff return. "I was just was playing special teams, I ran down after the play, and I didn’t feel right,'' he said. "I kept going back out, and it was harder and harder to catch my breath. I went to my coach. He thought it’d be a good idea to go to the trainer with it. They did a great job pulling me out, and recognizing the symptoms and treating me.'' Source: Cleveland Plain Dealer
