- December 4, 2025
Matanzas High School junior Jack Ferguson was stuck, half in the moving boat, half out, as a dock cleat was ripping through his leg.
Less than two months later, the linebacker said he was “super excited” to score his first career touchdown. That barely explains the emotional high he and his family experienced on Friday, Aug. 29.
Ferguson recovered a punt for a touchdown and later intercepted a pass in the Pirates’ 43-24 home victory against University High. In early July, the junior was told that because of possible nerve damage he could have difficulty walking and might never play sports again.
The accident occurred during a fishing outing in Mississippi on July 1. Ferguson and his Pirates teammate Jaxson Narrington were visiting Ferguson's extended family. Ferguson was bringing the boat back in, but he was coming in to the dock too fast.
"I was trying to save the boat, and I got stuck on something, but the boat kept moving,” he said. “Half my body stayed in the boat, and the dock cleat dug into my leg and just kept ripping along as the boat kept moving.”
He suffered a deep gash from his ankle to mid calf causing nerve damage. Narrington ripped off his shirt to wrap up Ferguson’s leg and then called Ferguson’s mom while Ferguson called 911.
Within an hour and half, Ferguson was on the operating table. The surgeons repaired severed nerves, stitched up muscles and drained dirty river water from a wound that would require 42 stitches, Ferguson said.
“I was at risk for infection. There was a chance I was going to get foot drop (having difficulty lifting the front part of the foot) and walking even could have been weird because of all the nerve damage,” he said. “I severed two pretty big nerves, so definitely I was really worried. I still can't feel anything in my leg. It's numb all along the whole front side, like my skin is not even there. So that's what it feels like, it's weird.”
He didn’t walk for nearly three weeks. Then he returned to Mississippi where his doctors cleared him.
“My surgeons were great,” he said. “It was really 50-50. That was just straight up luck that it worked out good. They told me it could go either way.”
When he got back home, he hit the gym. It was important to him to get back on the field because he missed eight games last year with a broken and dislocated knee cap.
... I was really dedicated to try to get back. I started practicing the week of the the kickoff classic. I was playing scared on it for the first few days, but I quickly got over that.
— JACK FERGUSON
“I knew I couldn’t miss time again, so I was really dedicated to try to get back,” he said. “I started practicing the week of the the kickoff classic. I was playing scared on it for the first few days, but I quickly got over that because I knew I had to play a game the next week — the Potato Bowl (on Aug. 22). I couldn't miss it.”
He had eight tackles against Flagler Palm Coast in the Potato Bowl. But that didn’t compare to the exhilaration he felt after making two big plays against University. In the third quarter, the Pirates' Rylee Roberts blocked a punt and Ferguson recovered the ball for a touchdown. Later, in the fourth quarter, Ferguson stepped in front of a running back and intercepted a pass, returning it 15 yards.
“This was my first touchdown, my first big play really since I came back from injury, so I was super excited. The interception just added to it. I thought I was going (to score again), but I went the wrong way and my blockers weren’t there,” Ferguson said.
Matanzas football coach Matt Forrest said it was gratifying to see Ferguson have a big game.
“From early July, when his leg was filleted open, not knowing if he’d walk again, if it would be infected from the dirty water, with nerve damage a possibility, everything was so uncertain,” Forrest said. “To have him go out there and see him be successful, what a chapter in that young man’s story.”
