Jonathan Hefney had made the same kind of play who knows how many times in his more than two decades of playing football.

It was Oct. 1, 2015, and Hefney was a defensive halfback for the Montreal Alouettes in a Canadian Football League game at Ottawa’s TD Place stadium.

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The Ottawa Redblacks had possession of the football. Quarterback Henry Burris threw a short pass to fullback Patrick Lavoie, just behind the line of scrimmage near the south sideline, and Lavoie wrapped his arms around the ball before powering forward.

Hefney, listed at five feet nine inches and 185 pounds, ran headfirst into the 6-2, 240-pound Lavoie.

The clash of their bodies and equipment made a sharp crack that was audible in the press box at the top level of the south grandstand. Other players at field level said it sounded like a car crash.

Hefney went down to the turf, Lavoie did not. Alouettes linebacker Winston Venable tackled Lavoie after a four-yard gain.

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Lavoie and Venable then stood up, Hefney did not. Medical staff from both teams attended to him. He was eventually placed on a stretcher and sent to hospital. The game resumed after a nine-minute delay. The Redblacks won 39-17.

Hefney hasn’t played since. He signed a one-day contract with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, his first CFL team, in May 2016 and immediately retired. He signed that document with his left hand.

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Jonathan Hefney posted two intriguing tweets on April 4, 2017 — 551 days after he was injured in that Alouettes-Redblacks game in Ottawa.

“As I’m tossing the football to my nephew left handed I said to him calm dude I pray u get to play football way longer than I did.”

“He told me he will never play in CFL unless it’s okay with me.”

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Photo by Gerry Kahrmann / Postmedia News

“I’m all right, spirit-wise, but everything else …” Hefney said from Rock Hill, S.C. “My (right) arm’s not 100 per cent better yet. I have to get another surgery here coming up, hopefully, by next year to try to get my arm back into useable shape. I’ve got a long way to go.”

Hefney had one surgery in 2016 to repair some of the damage resulting from his helmet-to-helmet collision with Lavoie, including three fractured vertebrae and nerve damage. The objective, Hefney said, was to enable the right-handed man to build enough strength in the biceps muscle in that arm to feed himself.

Even now, the triceps and deltoid muscles do not function well enough for him to reach as far as he would want to.

“As far as putting a fork in my hand and eating, I’m just working on those skills,” he said. “It’s pretty much like I’m a kid again, you know, with the right arm. … I’m learning how to eat with it again.

“I really haven’t been writing yet because I’ve been writing with my left hand. I’m pretty decent writing with my left hand, because I used to do it all the time when I was younger, so I’ve got that down. But, shoot, they’re talking about another surgery.”

This is where the business sides of professional football and health care intersect, and at a time when the onus of professional sports leagues to their players is of growing interest and importance, particularly in the age of awareness about the devastating tolls that head injuries such as concussions can take.

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Amid the debate, those who represent CFL players are trying to get benefits that will protect their workers in case of long-term injuries, and legal cases that will affect those same issues are working their way through the system.

Hefney’s story is one of many others, and the implications of what the CFL eventually agrees to do or is forced to do, will be wide-ranging.

Photo by Allen McInnis / Montreal Gazette

Hefney said his first surgical procedure cost $88,000, with 90 per cent covered by insurance and 10 per cent paid by the Alouettes as an insurance deductible. After a few months of post-operative therapy, and a total of 12 months after he was injured, coverage ended.

The Alouettes had no further obligation under provisions of the collective agreement between the CFL and the Canadian Football League Players’ Association, nor was Hefney eligible for provincial workers’ health benefits.

In fact, no professional athlete is eligible for workers’ health benefits in any province. It’s the same situation whether it’s CFL, National Hockey League or any other pro sport.

“It’s terrible, it’s terrible,” Hefney repeated.

“I never want to put the CFL down, honestly, because it gave me the opportunity to play football. I know injuries are part of the game and everything, and I gave my 100 per cent. If I was healthy now, if they fixed my arms and I could go out and play again, I’d be right back out there, doing the same thing. It’s just how much I love the game.

“I’ve been playing since I was eight years old. I just always felt like, if I got hurt, I just always felt like they should always. … The NFL, they’re going to make sure you’re straight until you’re healthy, and I feel like the CFL should do me the same way until I’m healthy, to find out what I’ve got going on. They should always just look out for me, at least pay for my surgeries, pay for my therapy, and I can handle everything else.

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“They should know that they should do that. A year from my injury is when they stopped the insurance, the date that I got hurt, which is October first.”

Hefney said he has continued to pay cash for physical therapy sessions five or six times a month, total cost being $500 to 600. The therapist, he added, has allowed him to do water therapy pretty much for free and he has also had free use of the local YMCA.

The second procedure required to enhance Hefney’s ability to use his right arm couldn’t be performed within the 12-month medical-benefit coverage period because of recovery time and rehabilitation required after the first surgery.

When he spoke from Rock Hill, Hefney didn’t yet know the estimated cost.

He said he’d figure out a way to pay for it, “if I have to,” with his own savings and help that some football-playing buddies have promised him.

“They can take nerves from different parts of my body,” he said. “They’re thinking about taking a nerve out of my (trapezoid muscles) because my traps are so huge right now, still, because of how much rehab I do by myself. I do a lot of lifting weights on my neck and whatever. I do squats and everything, too.”

Brian Ramsay is a retired CFL offensive lineman and now CFLPA executive director.

He said the vast majority of football injuries “are not long-term with the proper rehabilitation. His doctors are confident that there’s a solution there. Now they haven’t been able to get there because there’s no coverage for him.”

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Hefney’s ordeal has been hauntingly familiar.

It was Sept. 9, 2006, and Hefney was a University of Tennessee Vols defensive back playing against Air Force Academy.

Another junior defensive back, Inquoris “Inky” Johnson, made a lunging attempt to tackle an Air Force receiver. The collision ruptured the subclavian artery in Johnson’s chest and tore both chest and shoulder ligaments and nerves in his right shoulder.

His right arm was paralyzed, its condition to this very day.

The University of Tennessee covered Johnson’s medical cost. He would later earn a master’s degree in sports psychology from that institution, marry and have two children.

After being injured in Ottawa, Hefney contacted his former teammate and sent Johnson a video clip of the incident.

“When I first got hurt, the only thing I was moving was my hand.

“He was like, ‘Man … you moved your hand?'”

From Atlanta, Johnson said he couldn’t remember exactly advice he gave Hefney about dealing with his new normal, but it probably included extracting positives from the dedication, commitment and passion he had displayed for football and applying them to everyday life as a man and father.

“The tough part, when I saw (the video), the first thing I thought about was I hope his career is not over,” Johnson said. “Guys have been working for their whole life and I know how he played the game and what the game meant to him.”

Hefney expressed hope his second procedure would allow him to find a coaching job.

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“I can’t do no working right now,” the 32-year-old said. “It would allow me to coach and get a job. I really want to coach CFL, I really want to coach college players. CFL, NFL. That has been my goal to do that after I play ball because I relate to the older guys a whole lot better than I do to the kids. I think I’ll be a whole lot more relevant (to them).”

Hefney’s nephew, Kaiden Watkins, to whom he threw footballs left-handed in April, started playing flag football this year at eight years of age. The proud uncle bragged about the youngster’s foot speed and said he’s already a pro prospect.

The same nephew is a devoted fan of the NFL’s Pittsburgh Steelers, but “loves the CFL, loves it to death,” because of his uncle’s personal history and because he had met current CFL players such as Stefan Logan, Tyrell Sutton and S.J. Green during a visit to Montreal.

“He’s working on his left-handed throwing now because he sees me throwing left-handed,” Hefney said, “so it’s all love, man.”

Looking back on the play that left him injured, Hefney admitted he had intended to deliver a crunching hit on Lavoie: Be the hammer, not the nail.

Looking back, though, he should have done things differently.

“If I could do that hit again, I probably would have hit him low. I would have hit him on his knees instead,” he said. “Me, I know I can hit. I just went in there the wrong way.”

Hefney recently returned to Montreal for the first time since being injured. He spent some time with Alouettes receiver Nik Lewis, the CFL’s all-time leader in pass receptions, watched a practice and attended the Sept. 17 home game against the Redblacks.

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Earlier this year, he also returned to Winnipeg for the first time since his career ended. He went to a Blue Bombers alumni event and signed autographs for fans, left-handed of course.

Back in Rock Hill, he awaits his next examination by a specialist. That will determine the next medical step, which in turn determine its cost.

Either way, there won’t be any additional medical-benefits coverage from the Alouettes, who have met their obligations in full. If Hefney had been an equipment manager or athletic therapist or held any number of other “normal” jobs, he would have been eligible for provincial worker-compensation benefits.

“If it was anywhere else and I got hurt on the job. … I got hurt on live TV.”

UPDATE: On Oct. 2, Jonathan Hefney posted on his Twitter account a note about the creation of a GoFundMe account to raise funds for his medical costs.