Mike Sherels doesn't remember five days last month. Five days when his life changed. Five days spent in ICU, on a ventilator, near death.
The former Gophers football captain and current assistant coach underwent four surgeries in one week as doctors discovered that his intestines were ravaged.
"They opened me up and everything was dead," he said.
He didn't learn the seriousness of his condition until after he woke up in his university hospital bed. His wife, Emily, showed him a picture of him sedated, holding his daughter's hand while she looked at her favorite book, Dumbo.
Emily told 3-year-old Valerie that the ventilator was Dad's superhero mask.
"Seeing that picture was like, I almost died," Mike said, his voice trembling. "I didn't know."
Details of his illness were kept private by his family and the university. At home and recovering this week, Sherels offered to share his ordeal so that people can understand what he went through and the long road ahead.
Sherels, already a football lifer in Minnesota, is 31. Emily is 30. They have two kids, a girl and boy, ages 3½ and 18 months.