Arizona Cardinals' Antonio Hamilton grateful for quick recovery from severe burns

Antonio Hamilton ignored all of the requests for interviews for several weeks until the Arizona Cardinals cornerback was ready to open up about the life-threatening kitchen accident that badly burned his feet.

When he did on Monday, less than 24 hours after Hamilton completed a courageous comeback from the second-degree burns to play in the Cardinals' 20-17 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, it was understandably emotional.

Taking the field at State Farm Stadium Sunday, Hamilton couldn't hold back his emotions.

"It was overwhelming. Of course, I was going through a lot of emotions, just trying to stay under control and trying not to get too high. But as soon as I stepped out on that field, it just all just oozed out," Hamilton said before pausing, dropping his head and shaking it to gather himself. "Like, I'm just thankful, I just have a lot of gratitude. I was in a very, very, very dark place."

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Six weeks ago, Hamilton was in his kitchen about to cook shrimp in a new pot. The pot and the grease inside it caught fire, and before Hamilton knew it, he'd burned his feet.

Things escalated fast. Hamilton's daughters were crying, the smoke alarms in his house were going off, and in his instinctual effort to get the pot off the stove, his face was burned.

Then Hamilton's shorts he was wearing caught on fire, and, as he described it, when the fire could have gotten even worse, he felt a gust of air.

"It was nobody but God. I mean, I think in my mind that, you know, I had to go through this for something," Hamilton said. "And I've met some people and I had some conversations with people that I wouldn't have had, had I not burned my feet or sustained any of these injuries."

The physical healing continues. Hamilton can't sit for long stretches without feeling a tingling sensation from the nerve endings on his feet. His skin is healed, but it's new skin. He has no muscular damage, but he lost a good deal of weight from not being able to eat due to the extreme pain he felt.

But Hamilton healed quickly. His wife Tiara was there to take care of cleaning and dressing his wounds and changing the bandages. She took care of the couple's daughters, while currently 7½ months pregnant with a baby boy. She also documented Hamilton's recovery process and healing on social media, in hopes that anyone going through the same thing or any doctors can see how to treat the burns and what healing looks like.

"What are the steps, what to look for, you know, what it looks like throughout two, three weeks," Hamilton said. "And yeah, we just want to do that and post it and whatever doctors want to use to see how it is as far as the recovery process, they're more than welcome to use it."

The fire and burns were a freak accident, the result of which Hamilton relied on faith and family to get through.

"It could have been worse, and my family could have got hurt from that situation," Hamilton said, "and for me to just sustain these little bit of injuries, I call it a little bit now because I went through it, made it through it. But just that little bit, you know, it could have been way worse, I could have lost one of my kids, I could have lost my wife."

The small daily parts of life now mean a lot more to Hamilton, from applying lotion to his skin to walking around barefoot.

Football took an immediate backseat to Hamilton's physical well being and making sure his family got through the ordeal. The Cardinals put him on the non-football related injured list before the regular season, after Hamilton had a strong training camp earned a starting job on defense.

"He's a passionate guy. He's fun to be around and just knowing his story, all the different teams he's been on, where he comes from," Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury said. "He motivates himself and really, really impressed by the type of person and player he is. So to have him back on the team was good, and we eased him back in (Sunday). Hopefully he can get more snaps this week."

Get in touch with Jose Romero at Jose.Romero@gannett.com. Find him on Twitter at @RomeroJoseM. 

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Cardinals' Antonio Hamilton details recovery from severe burns