On July 10, 2024, Los Angeles Dodgers player Dustin May had a ‘freak accident’ while eating a salad where a piece of lettuce tore his esophagus, requiring emergency surgery. On Feb. 24, May made his official return to the Dodgers and pitched one scoreless inning in a spring training game.
In 2023, May faced a torn flexor tendon in his right arm that had put him out of the sport for a year, and while in his rehabilitation stage of recovery for his arm, preparing to play again, he tore his esophagus one night while eating a salad. His dinner caused him immense pain for the following 15 minutes, and although the pain subsided, his wife Millie May urged him to go to the emergency room. The doctors stated that May obtained a severe esophageal tear that would require immediate surgery requiring a full abdominal surgery.
“It was definitely a life-altering event,” May said, as it required him to start rehab again. He was not even allowed to lift 10 pounds until September of 2024. This experience changed May’s perspective of life as this experience for him was viewed as an almost death event.
As May put it, “I probably wouldn’t have made it through the night if I didn’t have [the surgery].”
May told the Los Angeles Times that “[i]t just kind of gives me a different viewpoint on a lot of things in life … [j]ust seeing how something so non-baseball-related can just be like — it can be gone in a second. And the stuff it put my wife through, it definitely gave me [a feeling] of, ‘Wow, stuff can change like that.’ It was definitely very scary.” May was finally approved to begin full-strength training in January of this year.
May is hopeful that he will be able to join the rotation during the beginning of the regular season; however, this would put him in the fifth roster spot behind Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki. He plans to use this significant turning point in his life as a motivating factor to become the starting pitcher for the Dodgers.
May, a third-round pick in the 2016 MLB Draft for the Los Angeles Dodgers, debuted in 2019. He was the top prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers, making 46 appearances in a game from 2019 through 2022. The pitcher was 12-9 with a 3.10 ERA (Earned Run Average) over his career thus far.
Junior Okan Holmes commented that this incident “really shows the unfairness in life and that we should be grateful for what we have right now because it could go away at any moment,” which is similar to May’s response to his incident.
Meanwhile, junior Stephen Koopersmith, voiced similar concerns as the news sources about May’s proneness to injury, stating that “May’s a guy who’s dealt with a lot of adversity,” while also adding that such an incident “really has got to make you appreciate the fragility of life.”
Junior Lara Asch said the story made her “realize that life is uncertain and anything can happen at any moment.” May’s unexpected journey underscores the unpredictable nature of life, reminding us to appreciate the moments we have, both on and off the field.
