COLUMBUS, Ohio — Isaiah Pead had the word "Faith" tattooed on his left hand while preparing for an NFL career.
Five years later, it provides even more inspiration now that his playing days are over.
Pead is a running back who can no longer run.
His left leg was severed and right leg was badly damaged in a November 2016 car accident that left him just moments away from death. Eight subsequent surgeries have followed.
A former high school track star whose top five times among running backs at the 2012 NFL Scouting Combine helped him become a second-round draft pick, Pead remains relegated to crutches until his prosthetic leg is fitted later this year. The guy who ran the 40-yard dash in 4.47 seconds and the three-cone drill in 6.95 at the combine now weighs 160 pounds, having dropped almost one quarter of his body weight from last fall, when he last suited up for the Miami Dolphins.
"I’ve got my muscles but I’m just light," Pead told Sporting News from the living room of his grandparents’ home in Columbus. “I went from four percent body fat, and I’ve probably got none now.
"But I still work out. I stay on my push-ups — my bread-and-butter right there. With me being so light, it’s easy … It’s just irritating."
It would be understandable if Pead were consumed by self-pity. He's a 26-year-old whose entire world turned as topsy-turvy as the 2011 Cadillac CTS that tumbled 40 feet down an embankment with him in it, after careening off the side of a highway.
Pead, though, has refused to wallow in sorrow from the moment he awoke in the hospital and became aware of the accident and damage suffered.
"He was still talking the same way he was the day before, smiling and laughing and cracking jokes," said Ruby Bowman, Pead’s girlfriend and mother of their seven-month-old namesake son nicknamed "Deuce."
"It surprised me a lot. I was nervous and scared for how he would adjust to no longer being able to have football. Everyone thought maybe he’s still in shock or doesn’t really know what happened and wouldn’t get it until living a normal life. But he's still going strong."
Pead will rely on that strength while trying to mount a comeback more difficult than the one he completed in the NFL.
"Isaiah had already conquered football," Pead’s mother, Leshawna, said. “This is something totally new. It’s even more of a challenge in a good way.
"It’s like, 'Ooh, this is a new chapter. Let’s write it.'"
***
The book had almost closed on Pead’s NFL career before he pried it back open.
As the 50th player selected in his draft class, by the Rams, Pead never came close to being the same kind of difference-maker he was at the University of Cincinnati. A rough rookie campaign was followed by a disappointing second season that began with Pead serving a four-game suspension under the league’s substance-abuse policy.
Entering the 2014 offseason, Pead rededicated himself and worked harder to gain the trust of Rams coaches, whom he believes had not shown much faith in him. A period of fasting followed by a dietary change — red meat was replaced by chicken and fish — led to Pead feeling his best during OTA sessions.
"I was nice," Pead said with a laugh. "I was shocking myself. The film didn’t lie.
"Nobody could deny it — and I had been being denied my entire time there."
But it wasn’t long before Pead was denied again. A broken pinkie that sidelined him early in training camp was followed by a season-ending knee injury suffered in his first game back.
The Rams cut Pead early in the 2015 season. Another chance with Pittsburgh later in the year ended with his release after less than a month.
Pead’s NFL future remained in question until he drew attention from Miami during the 2016 offseason. Seeking depth at running back, the Dolphins signed Pead following an impressive workout.
Before the contract was signed, Miami’s hierarchy wanted to make sure Pead understood the chance he was being given.
"We said, 'Hey, just look at this as a fresh start,'" Dolphins coach Adam Gase recalled. "The past is what it is. Just do the right thing every day, come in here and work and compete. You’re going to get as fair of an opportunity as you can ask for."
The Dolphins were true to their word. After a strong preseason, Pead stuck on the 53-man roster. He debuted as a backup against Cleveland in Week 3, carrying five times for 17 yards, and followed that with snaps the following game at Cincinnati.
Following Miami’s 1-4 start, Gase settled on a tightened running back rotation, and Pead was released.
Still, Pead was back on the NFL radar, and a signing seemed inevitable after subsequent tryouts with Washington and Kansas City. Gase also said Miami probably would have re-signed Pead had injuries hit his team's running back crew.
"Just being able to come back and make a roster and figure out a way to compete at this position, he made it really tough on us as far as deciding who was going to play," Gase said.
Pead said he was scheduled to return to South Florida and resume training while waiting for another chance to play.
The trip was never taken because of what happened two days prior in the early morning of Nov. 12.
Wesley Richardson is the only one who can recount the details of exactly why.
***
Richardson first met Pead when both played at Cincinnati. They were Columbus natives a year apart in school. They had adjoining lockers and lived in the same apartment complex. Pead wore jersey No. 23; Richardson, a defensive back, was No. 24.
The two remained close after Pead pursued an NFL career and Richardson branched into a bank job involving money-laundering investigations. Returning home for the weekend after being stationed in Charlotte on a work assignment, Richardson met with Pead for what was planned as a night on the town.
The two hopped into Pead’s car — the one slated to receive a tire change the following week — but found nothing appealing at the spots they hit after getting off to a late start. Pead and Richardson then decided to meet with a group of friends at a Waffle House near the former’s house.
Pead said he wasn’t impaired, and the police report states there were no signs of alcohol or drug use. Pead, though, admits he was driving “a little over the speed limit" while approaching a curve heading eastbound on I-670 near the East 5th Avenue exit.
"I hit a bump and lost control," Pead said. "I lost consciousness. [Richardson] never lost consciousness so he tells me the story."
Richardson said the car hit a divot, which offset the weight distribution. Pead tried to correct the vehicle but fishtailed left and right before crashing through a guard rail and plummeting down a heavily forested area into the neighborhood park below.
"I had my seatbelt on and he did not," Richardson told Sporing News in his first interview about the accident. "It’s crazy because the paramedics who were the first responders told me the seat belt saved me, and him not having the belt on saved him, because they probably would have had to cut him out of the car and he would have bled out by the time they were done."
Richardson escaped relatively unscathed, with a concussion and some abrasions. He was discharged from a hospital not long after his admission.
Pead wasn’t nearly as lucky. The guard rail that came through the driver's side severed Pead’s left leg and pinned his right one, causing all three knee ligaments and hamstring to tear. Pead was ultimately ejected and found 30 feet from a vehicle riddled with branches. The disconnected bumper was left hanging high in the trees.
Richardson said he initially did not know where Pead was once the Cadillac finally stopped.
"I was screaming to see if he’d respond," Richardson said. "I looked to my left and saw his leg right there in the middle of the car on the arm rest going toward the back of the car. I didn’t know if he was punched into the back and his leg was sticking out, but the entire back of the car was smashed down. If anyone was sitting there, they would have been crushed."
Admittedly thinking "all bad things," Richardson climbed out of the gaping hole that was created on the driver’s side. Richardson then responded to the yelling he heard from women atop the embankment who had witnessed the accident.
The subsequent quick 911 call, combined with the quick actions of paramedics from a fire station located just blocks away from Cassady Park, saved Pead’s life. So did the surgeries and transfusions in the aftermath.
"They said I had about three to five minutes to live because I was bleeding out," Pead said.
Life, though, would never be the same.
***
Leshawna Pead knows her son doesn't take well to hearing "No" for an answer.
Each time he would awake from a drug-induced sleep, Pead would immediately begin trying to ask where he was and what had happened before choking on the post-surgical tube sticking down his throat. Pead would then be sedated again.
Less than two days into this cycle, Leshawna insisted on breaking the news to her son, with Richardson by her side, against the wishes of the hospital’s medical staff.
"Isaiah has always been a straight-to-the point kind of person," Leshawna said. "What you can't do is not answer him. They said, ‘Don't upset him. Don't tell him yet what’s going on,' but he was so relentless I told him.
"My son is not your average patient. You have to tell him or this wasn't going to stop."
Once the account was given, Leshawna said her son "closed his eyes for a minute and opened them back up." Pead then gestured for a pen and paper to communicate what he was thinking.
What happened next told Leshawna that Isaiah was going to be OK.
"He wrote, 'My whip game is proper,'" Leshawna said with a laugh. "It changed the whole mood of everything."
Richardson, too, was stunned at how Pead handled the situation.
"I was scared because I didn’t know how he would react when he woke up," Richardson said. “He was making a living with his legs. It’s not like somebody who can go back to a normal job and make money the way they had been. His entire life was about to flip upside-down. We honestly thought he was going to freak out and go crazy over it all.
"He did 20 times better than all of us combined."
Why?
"I’m used to performing under pressure, but this wasn’t pressure of a game,” Pead said. "This was, 'How am I going to respond with all these eyes that are looking at me but also counting on me?'
"My decision wasn’t rushed. It seems rushed, but I accepted it right then."
Isaiah Pead celebrates Cincinnati's win over Pittsburgh in December 2009. (Getty Images)
Pead would stay strong in the upcoming weeks while hearing from well-wishers and receiving surprise visits from guests that included Bearcats trainer Bob Mangine, who brought him a red No. 23 Cincinnati jersey, and agent Rick Smith. Upon getting released from the hospital, Pead began a rehabilitation program for his right leg with the same mindset that he used when recovering from his ACL surgery.
This time, thoughts of returning to the field were not inspiring him, but rather the son who was born shortly before Pead's accident.
"That’s my guy," said Pead, who watches Deuce during the day while his girlfriend works. "Sometimes I get so tired of the crutches that I hop around. He'll fuss and cry and I'll come hopping around the corner. He’ll see me hopping and just start kicking and stuff. It’s the funniest thing in the world."
Pead also spends time working on expanding what he hopes will provide his post-football livelihood, a vehicle-moving service called Stampede Trucking. Another step in making the transition is buying a house and moving with his immediate family to the Columbus suburb of Pickerington.
Once he regains the mobility that will come with a prosthetic, Pead plans to become more active in trying to provide inspiration to others who have suffered a physical calamity.
"I want to continue to be a motivator to whatever I come across," he said. “That starts with myself, looking at myself in the mirror every day — a full body mirror.
"You can see, you know, half of me. I'm my own inspiration, literally."
What is inked on Pead’s hand strengthens that drive.
"I don’t think about the 'What if' because I don’t regret anything I went through when I had two legs," Pead said. "I came to work every day and put my best foot forward and let things fall where they fell. They just didn’t fall in my favor.
"I can accept that because I have faith in God, who has a bigger plan. I'm just here to live it out."
