Ricky Pearsall is out for at least the next four weeks, but he was back on the 49ers' practice field Thursday afternoon. Five days after being shot in the chest, Pearsall walked out during pass-catching drills, picked up a football and tossed it to himself while receivers and tight ends caught passes.
It's impossible to understate just how literally "miraculous," -- as John Lynch put it -- this is. Kyle Shanahan put some of that in context Thursday.
"It's kind of been amazing just watching him," Shanahan said. "I got to see him Sunday, Monday. For him being able to walk around with that happening, and talking to people in the ER saying that out of like 100 people, two people have survived that. To be able to see him the next day, and that he's able to walk, he's coming to meetings. He was doing all that."
Shanahan said Pearsall has to wait about a week without "working up a sweat," but will begin the rehab process after that. The 49ers' head coach relayed what he went through Saturday afternoon and night, after Pearsall was shot.
He said the 49ers knew he got shot Saturday afternoon, but nothing else for about an hour. In that time, they "feared the worst." In the moments after the shooting, Shanahan said that Pearsall didn't know if he would live or die.
Then they found out he was at San Francisco General, and by that time, Pearsall FaceTimed Shanahan.
"That was the first time I knew he was alright," Shanahan said. "I got a call like 20 minutes before that saying he was conscious, he was talking, that he was going to survive. But then he FaceTimed me right after from his bed and was real upbeat. It was real amazing."
Pearsall's adrenaline was still running to the point that he told Shanahan, "I think I could still play versus the Jets."
Shanahan said that call relieved a lot of anxieties. He had to let Pearsall know that the adrenaline would wear off and some of the reality would set in.
He pointed to the mental hurdles of the trauma Pearsall sustained, which might be more of a weight than the physical impediments he'll face to return.
Shanahan said the instinct when you see someone after an incident is to ask what happened. That approach, though, can heighten the trauma. He said he told the team to avoid doing that with Pearsall.
"I told the team, everyone wants to show him they care, and so what do you do? You go up to someone, you ask them how it happened," Shanahan said. "It's a pretty traumatizing story. I told the team, we don't want to make him relive that 80 times. So he knows how much everyone cares about him. He loves being around. It's all up to him with that stuff. But everyone's trying to give him space in that way and just let him work through this process, because the physical thing is one thing, but it's a pretty big mental toll on someone, too."
Shanahan also made clear the 49ers were "definitely ending" their party before they knew Pearsall was alright. The shooting happened roughly two hours before the party, hosted by Shanahan at his house, but Pearsall's call made him comfortable continuing with it.
He stressed that he and the team would not have continued on with the event if they weren't confident about Pearsall's situation. Shanahan lauded him for his strength.
"He's the toughest person I know," Shanahan said. "To watch how he handled that situation and watch how he's been every day since, it shows how special of a guy he is."