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Southern WR Devon Gales suffers serious spinal injury; Information below on how you can help

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Southern football player and the entire Southern football family.

Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports

UPDATE (9/29, 9:15 AM) - Southern has announced that they have officially set up a fund to assist with Devon Gales living and medical expenses. You can contribute to the Devon Gales Fund at this link.

Here is the Southern press release in full:

Devon Gales Fund

Coach Mark Richt and Coach Mark Fox have already tweeted out calls to Dawg Nation to help Devon how we can.

And as before, our thoughts and prayers continue to be with Devon during his recovery.

UPDATE (9/27, 6:55 PM) - Seth Emerson has filed this update on Devon's condition, including comments that Mark Richt made during his weekly teleconference.

A couple of quotes from the article:

Gales' parents are with him: They were flown in from Louisiana at UGA's expense on Saturday night, then driven to Athens by Georgia staff, according to Georgia athletics director Greg McGarity. There has been an active and concerted effort by Georgia officials, led by head athletic trainer Ron Courson, to coordinate with Southern and help out.

"We're trying to cover him up with as much love as we can, and let him know that we care, let him know that we're here to help," Richt said. "We're just gonna continue to pray, and I know the Bulldog nation is behind him as well. There may come a time where there may be some needs. Not exactly sure yet. But it does come to that I'm going to be calling all Dawgs to get involved and to help out."

UPDATE (9/27, 6:50 pm) - From Southern University:

UPDATE (9/27, 3:45 PM) - Chris Hagan of WAFB-TV in Baton Rouge tweeted the following updates last night, but we just saw them this afternoon:

UPDATE (9/27, 3:30 PM) - Marc Weiszer of the Athens Banner-Herald is reporting that Gales' parents parents are in Athens with their son at Athens Regional. Weiszer quoted Greg McGarity as saying:

[The UGA athletic department] has been heavily involved in assisting the family and school officials from the time of the accident and throughout the time they will spend in Athens. We've kind of treated it as if one of our student-athletes was injured. [UGA Director of Sports Medicine] Ron Courson and his staff have been tremendous as well as a lot of other people that offered to help.

UPDATE (9/27, 11:30 AM) - Rivals is reporting that Gales is scheduled to undergo surgery today.  We will keep you updated with any additional news that we have.

The original story is below.

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With 2:00 left in the 3rd quarter of the Georgia-Southern game, Devon Gales appeared to be injured on a kickoff return for Southern. The Southern athletic department has released an official statement saying that Gales suffered a "spinal injury," and asked for prayers for Devon and his family.

Here is the official statement:

SU_Football_statement_gales

We here at Dawg Sports want to send our thoughts and prayers to Devon, his family, and the Southern football family.  We are praying for Devon's quick and complete recovery.

Other Georgia twitter accounts have been expressing their support for Devon Gales, as well:

We will continue to update this situation as we have official, confirmed news to share.  (Please do not share unconfirmed rumors in the comments below, but feel free to express your well-wishes for Devon.)