For 20 minutes after a bad tackle in his junior year of college, Malik Boynton didn't know if he'd ever play football again.

"The more I moved, the more my body shut down, limb by limb," said the former Pittsburgh Steelers prospect, who recently signed to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The 2016 tackle, which came while Boynton was playing with Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, could have ended his football career. He lost feeling in first his left arm, then his right arm, then his legs buckled and he fell flat on his face.

He started to regain feeling as he lay in the back of the ambulance, and would later learn he had suffered a spinal concussion.

"It was just … a crazy injury, like, one of those one-in a million injuries, and I was blessed to bounce back from it. But the next day I was moving around," Boynton said in an interview with Ismaila Alfa on CBC Manitoba's afternoon radio show, Up to Speed.

Life up to that point hadn't always been blessed for Boynton. Growing up in Detroit, his family went through a series of struggles in his teenage years, beginning with the death of his mother from breast cancer.

His father was laid off from his job shortly after and the family moved in with Boynton's aunt, who also died of cancer only a couple of months after they moved in.

Boynton bounced around from house to house, often staying with teammates and coaches, sleeping where he could.

Staying positive during that time was "the only option," said Boynton, who says his younger brother didn't make the same choices and ended up in prison.

"I took a different route. I just knew the consequence at the end of that. I wanted to set a good example for my siblings," he said.

Boynton was invited to try out at the Pittsburgh Steelers camp, but left without a contract. He then signed briefly with the Memphis Express, a team in the Alliance of American Football league, which folded earlier this month after being in existence for only eight weeks.

That opened up the opportunity for Boynton to sign with the CFL's Blue Bombers.

"I'm extremely grateful and excited to start the process," he said.

Boynton will play defensive back for the Bombers in the upcoming season.