MLB PLAYER NEWS

Rockies’ Axford takes leave to be with ailing son

The Sports Xchange

April 13, 2015 at 12:21 am.

John Axford. (Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports)

DENVER — Reliever John Axford did not accompany the Rockies on their flight to San Francisco after Sunday’s game. He will be absent from the team, perhaps for as long as a week, to be with his 2-year-old son, Jameson, who was bitten twice on the top of his right foot by a rattlesnake near the end of spring training.

The Rockies placed Axford on the family medical emergency list, meaning he will be off the 25-man roster for at least three and no more than seven days.

Jameson underwent surgery Monday in Arizona but needs additional surgery because of complications in the foot. Before the Rockies’ 6-5 loss to the Cubs, Axford explained the situation that resulted from the initial surgery.

“We found out some tougher news than we were expecting,” Axford said. “The necrotic tissue on his foot ended up being worse than we thought. There was a lot of infection in there, and it was a staph infection. The tissue they thought was going to be good turned out to not be great. The necrotic tissue was all the way down to the base. They had to cut all the tissue out to the bone and tendon.”

Axford said doctors in Arizona, whom he praised, are unable to do anything more for Jameson, who was bitten outside a house north of Scottsdale, Ariz., that Axford was renting with his wife and two sons for spring training.

Jameson will be flown on a medical emergency flight to Denver with his mother, Nicole, and older brother JB. Axford said doctors in Arizona told him Jameson sustained the worst rattlesnake bite they had seen in the area.

“I need to get my mind off baseball and focus on my family and make sure they get here safely,” Axford said.

In Denver, Axford said, doctors will perform a “muscle flap” procedure and do some skin grafting.

“We still have a long road, a long process to go,” Axford said. “But at least I’ll be able to be closer to him. He’s going to be 3 this June. Anybody who has kids, you get to see your toddler running around, it’s an amazing thing to see. But when your son has been laying in a bed for more than two weeks and can’t move and he probably won’t be able to walk for another couple of months, what you want is just for him to walk. That’s what they’re trying to do for him.

“He’ll have an incredible scar on his foot to show people, and he’ll have the story from us. It was fortunate that it was in the area that it was, on his foot, not somewhere else on his body, and he had the great medical care that he’s had with the doctors and nurses and surgeons.”

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