Quadruple Amputee Doesn't Make The Cut

Story by Mitch McCann 

| Published Mar 15, 2011

Alan Jeffrees has dealt with adversity his entire life. Even at the young age of 17, Jeffrees, a senior at Owl Pine High in eastern New Jersey, has been involved in 3 near-fatal accidents that have claimed both of his arms and legs. But the last place Jeffrees expected to encounter adversity was from Dave Collins, Jeffrees’ high school hockey coach. A disheartened Jeffrees was informed Monday morning that the position of Varsity goalie, a post Jeffrees had held since he was freshman, would no longer be his.

Reporters were quick on the scene when Verna Jeffrees, Alan’s mother, offered the story to local news stations, citing a desire to inform the world of the coach’s decision.

“Look, Coach Collins needs to understand that you can’t always play the best man for the job. Sometimes you need to make the politically correct choice.”

Collins, a Physical Education teacher at Owl Pine, declined to comment, requesting only that the try-out tapes, which depicted the young Jeffrees sliding around on the ice, unable to stand on his skates, be cited as his reason for cutting the senior.

Jeffrees, a victim in two car accidents, a motorcycle collision and several carnival ride incidents, also suffered an episode involving a garage door later that Monday He was able to speak with the DailyER in between functions of his medical ventilator.

“I wish...that everyone....wouldn’t take this....thing so seriously....” Jeffrees bravely struggled to say. “I’m not even that....great a player....anyway.”

“Of course I’m not exploiting my son’s situation to be on the TV,” Verna Jeffrees told reporters outside Alan’s hospital room “I just think it’s important that my son be protected from the media, so I’ve offered to do all of my son’s press on his behalf.”