Cam Skattebo says he feared amputation after gruesome injury that ended his 2025 season

In a new documentary about his recovery, he also said he had a pregame premonition about his injury

Oct 30, 2026 at 11:46 am ET • 2 min read

New York Giants running back Cam Skattebo is coming off his best game of the season, having rushed 17 times for 124 yards and a touchdown against the Houston Texans last week. Skattebo had been unceremoniously benched in the previous game, taking just six snaps and recording zero carries following a costly fumble the week before, so it was good to see him get back to form.

Early in the season, Skattebo was running extremely inefficiently and averaged just 3.6 yards per carry over the Giants' first five games. That was perhaps unsurprising when you consider that his 2025 season ended with a right ankle dislocation, an open tibia fracture and a ruptured deltoid ligament. That's a scary injury, and one that can obviously affect a running back's performance, given how important cutting and changing direction are to succeeding at the position.

Skattebo said earlier this year that he had considered retirement in the wake of the injury, and this week he and the Giants released an hour-long documentary detailing his recovery. He revealed more about his situation, including that he was afraid his foot would have to be amputated and that he had a premonition about a potential injury before the game.

"Before the game, I actually had an out-of-body experience," Skattebo said, via GiantsWire. "We were all praying in the showers. I was holding both my teammates' hands. It almost felt like, when we were praying, my body was lifted out of my own body. It was weird. I didn't feel like I was in the present me. I didn't feel like myself."

Once he saw what the injury looked like, he feared doctors would have to amputate his foot.

"When I first got hurt, like I'm asking the doctors, like, they're going to have to cut my foot off," he said, via The New York Post.

"As soon as the doctor touched my foot, I felt pain. He snapped (my ankle) back into place, and it was like, 'A sigh of relief.' Once I got in the X-Ray room, they cut my shoe off, they cut my sock off, I was a half-second from passing out because I had dislocated it so far that the skin ripped."

Skattebo obviously did not get his foot amputated and did not retire, and is now back on the field and looks like the lead back for the Giants — especially after the team cut Najee Harris and placed Tyrone Tracy Jr. on injured reserve. He will need to maintain the improved efficiency he showed against the Texans, but just being back on the field and playing at all is pretty impressive considering the extent of the injury he sustained.