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  • Dalton deDianous, 17, center, receives a careful embrace from a...

    Dalton deDianous, 17, center, receives a careful embrace from a San Juan Hills High football teammate while others gather in front of his Ladera Ranch home after he returned from the hospital June 28. DeDianous suffered a broken neck in a June 21 car accident in Arizona.

  • Dalton deDianous of Ladera Ranch holds a T-shirt signed by...

    Dalton deDianous of Ladera Ranch holds a T-shirt signed by his San Juan Hills High football teammates.

  • Dalton deDianous, 17, was welcomed home in Ladera Ranch from...

    Dalton deDianous, 17, was welcomed home in Ladera Ranch from the hospital on June 28 by his San Juan Hills football teammates. DeDianous suffered a broken neck in a June 21 car accident in Arizona.

  • The San Juan Hills High football team booster club made...

    The San Juan Hills High football team booster club made a banner to welcome rising senior Dalton deDianous, 17, home from the hospital on June 28.

  • Dalton deDianous (No. 80, right) was set to be a...

    Dalton deDianous (No. 80, right) was set to be a starting wide receiver for the San Juan Hills varsity football team before he was injured in a car accident June 21. The Stallions still make him feel part of the team.

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LADERA RANCH – A day after he finished his junior year and celebrated late into the night, San Juan Hills High football player Dalton deDianous fell asleep at the wheel of his father’s car.

Dalton, 17, and his father, Michael deDianous, were going camping in the Mojave desert. Around 2 p.m. on June 21, they were driving along a remote stretch of Arizona State Route 72 when drowsiness led Dalton to drift off the road into the gravel shoulder.

Jostled awake, Dalton panicked. He jerked the wheel left, overcorrecting, a flash-fire motion that sent their silver sedan flipping violently across an 80-foot patch of desert.

The driver’s side took the impact, slamming five times against the earth. The tires came off. The car’s contents, including their cellphones, flew from shattered windows, the glass daggers flying, cutting its passengers.

When the car came to rest, four rims in the sand and its engine still running, Dalton was unconscious, strapped in by his seatbelt. His father feared he was dead until he heard his son moan.

Bleeding and bruised, Michael ran back to the road to flag down help. He was in the middle of nowhere, but somewhere near Parker, waiting the longest minutes of his life for a stranger to save them.

The first truck driver to stop didn’t speak English but knew enough to help stop a second truck driver who called for emergency services.

An ambulance rushed Dalton to La Paz Hospital in Parker. A plane airlifted him to the nearest trauma center, Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix.

His neck was broken, his C-2 vertebra fractured horizontally. He was alive, still able to move his arms and legs, but a cervical collar and the body board held his spine together and in proper place.

When Dalton regained consciousness the next day, he was lying in a hospital bed, a halo with six screws immobilizing his head, aluminum rods buttressing his neck above his shoulders and chest.

He didn’t know what happened. He recognized his parents, including his mother, Gayle Bashe, who had raced to the intensive care unit there from the family’s Ladera Ranch home.

Dalton’s first request: “Can you call Coach (Aaron Flowers) and let him know I can’t make practice?”

To understand this, you should know that Dalton is an undersized 5-foot-6-inch, 155-pound wide receiver who had spent his football-loving life fighting to make up for his size.

Bashe remembers how Dalton stuffed rocks in his pockets when he was younger so he could make weight to play Pop Warner. Everyone who knows Dalton knows football – playing, working out, practicing and being a Stallion and in position to start as senior – means everything to him.

“Football has been the biggest passion and the largest source of happiness in my life since I entered high school,” Dalton said Sunday. “I was scared that the accident would take that part of my life away from me.”

News of Dalton’s accident spread quickly among the players and his San Juan Hills classmates. Coach Flowers updated players daily and told the team that Dalton, the honor student and underdog “Rudy” of the Stallions, would be returning home in a week.

“Dalton is such a tenacious kid who earned everyone’s respect for how hard he worked and outperformed his size,” Flowers said. “When we heard what happened, everyone wanted to be there for him. We’re a football family.”

Teammate Kolton McCluskey designed gray “Dalton Strong No. 80” T-shirts for the players. Booster club parents stocked the family’s pantry with food and organized a meal train to bring Dalton and his family two weeks of dinners.

Players made dozens of banners and signs – “Welcome home!,” “Get well No. 80” and “We (heart) you!” – and covered the outside of the family’s home with them.

On the evening of June 28, when Dalton’s stepfather, Steve Bashe, drove Dalton and his parents home to Ladera Ranch, they turned onto their street to find more than 70 people lining the block.

“Were we invited to this (block party)?” asked Michael, not knowing about the surprise the Stallions arranged for the homecoming.

They lowered the car windows. Cheers and applause flooded them. Teammates waved signs and shouted, “We’re your brothers!” and “We’re here for you, Dalton.”

Speechless, his lip quivering, Dalton cried. He hadn’t wanted anyone to see him broken, fearing his injuries, his recovery and the halo he’d have to wear for three months would keep him from being one of the players. He’d lose a season.

But that night, surrounded by such love, he knew he had never lost his team.

He stepped from the car and carefully embraced each person. Since then, teammates have visited every night. He has been on the sideline for two scrimmages, helping coaches call the plays. He watched practice last week.

While he recovers, he won’t be able to suit up Saturday nights with the Stallions this fall. But, he said, “I’ve never felt more a part of my team, and I feel closer to my brothers on the team than ever before.”

Because he is still a Stallion.

Contact the writer: masmith@ocregister.com