SANTA CLARA, Calif. — It has to be fake.
That was Jacob Cowing’s reaction Saturday afternoon to the initial social media posts claiming that San Francisco 49ers rookie receiver Ricky Pearsall had been shot in the chest during a robbery attempt in downtown San Francisco. After all, Cowing had just spoken with Pearsall, his fellow rookie wide receiver, on the phone an hour earlier.
“I tried to contact him to see if he was OK if the rumors were fake or they were true,” Cowing said while seated at his locker on Tuesday. “I didn’t hear anything back, so at that moment my adrenaline started going up a little bit.”
That was the initial plunge Cowing and his 49ers teammates felt around 4 p.m. on Saturday. There was shock, disbelief, a ball of dread in their stomachs. An hour later, however, the reports about Pearsall already had taken a more optimistic tone — he was in stable condition and his life wasn’t in danger — and the outlook has improved even more in the days since the incident.
On Tuesday, general manager John Lynch reported that the bullet, which exited from Pearsall’s back, not only missed internal organs, it avoided striking ribs, something that commonly occurs in so-called “through and through” shots to the chest. Lynch used the word “miraculous” three times when discussing what transpired.
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“Multiple people (at San Francisco General Hospital) said this is about as good as outcome as you could have in this situation,” he said.
The 49ers placed Pearsall on the reserve/non-football injury list, which requires him to miss at least the first four games of the season. But Lynch said that calculus factored in Pearsall’s pre-existing shoulder injury.
“Oh, yeah,” he said when asked if he was confident Pearsall could play this season. “He’s doing remarkably so much better today than he was yesterday. Really, really miraculous. Didn’t touch organs, feels like all the nerve stuff is good. It’s pretty remarkable.”
The positive reports on Saturday evening encouraged the 49ers to go ahead with plans for that night’s annual team party — celebrating the team’s 53-man roster — and Pearsall even made an appearance from his hospital bed via FaceTime.
He also showed up at the team facility on Monday to check in with the team medical staff and to visit with teammates.
“It was great to see him in the building and I was actually kind of shocked myself seeing him in the building that fast,” said Cowing, who stressed that Pearsall is always so friendly and upbeat and that he was no different on Monday.
“It says a lot about his character: No matter what kind of setback he’s thrown in his life, he’s still gonna show up and be who he is.”
Said receiver Jauan Jennings of his reaction to seeing Pearsall: “Just hugged him and let him know to just take it at his own pace.”
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That’s the team’s priority now — making sure Pearsall, their first-round pick in the 2024 draft, has enough time to recover both physically and psychologically from what occurred.
Stanford professor Dean Winslow wasn’t one of the doctors who treated Pearsall on Saturday. However, he’s a retired Air Force flight surgeon who served during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and who’s dealt with numerous gunshot wounds to the chest.
While acknowledging how lucky Pearsall was to have avoided major trauma, he noted that even a small-caliber bullet will do damage to the muscles around the chest and that it will take time to recover from those wounds. He also stressed the psychological toll that gunshot wounds can inflict.
“Even a tough guy like a football player — it’s still a very traumatic event,” Winslow said. “And I think getting the psychological help that you need to go on with your life is so important. So I certainly hope he does avail himself of some counseling.”
Lynch said the 49ers will provide those resources to Pearsall.
“We have made it available,” Lynch said. “I think Ricky embraces that. That’s going to be on his call, but we’ll help him through this in every way.”
Even a prominent 49ers teammate who hadn’t been practicing alongside Pearsall was moved by what happened Saturday.
Left tackle Trent Williams, acknowledged as the locker room’s elder statesman, said the episode was partly why he ended his long contract holdout on Tuesday. Williams had made a brief visit to the team facility in the spring and remembered Pearsall walking up to him and introducing himself.
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“And I just instantly felt this vibe — and you just feel he’s such a genuine person,” Williams said. “So as soon as I saw (the shooting had) happened, I just wanted to get back, just wanted to be a voice in his ear to let him know everything’s gonna be all right. I wanted to be there for the team. A lot of people were probably hurt and confused about what happened.”
(Photo: Brooke Sutton / Getty Images)
