In the confusion of the moment, no one had realized that Baynes had lost his ability to walk. Or that he was headed for a nightmare that would derail his basketball career and leave him isolated in a Japanese hospital, weeping in pain day after day, with the possibility that he might be paralyzed. “The loneliest time in my life was laying in that hospital, going in and out of consciousness, going over my life plan and my goals and just crying,” Baynes says, speaking about the ordeal for the first time. “My uncle Don had an accident 10 years ago. He’s a quadriplegic,” he says. “My family’s had first-hand experience with this going down. I was so scared.”