Keion Eric Carpenter (October 31, 1977 – December 29, 2016) was an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

safety Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...

who played for the

Buffalo Bills The Buffalo Bills are a professional American football team based in the Buffalo–Niagara Falls metropolitan area. The Bills compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East div ...

and the

Atlanta Falcons The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC South, South division. The Falcons were founded o ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

Football career

Carpenter played

high school football High school football, also known as prep football, is gridiron football played by High school (North America), high school teams in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular high school sports, interscholastic sports in both c ...

at Woodlawn High School and

college football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

Virginia Tech The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, commonly referred to as Virginia Tech (VT), is a Public university, public Land-grant college, land-grant research university with its main campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States ...

and was signed as an undrafted

free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player or manager who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under a contract at present ...

by the

. He played for the Bills during the 1999, 2000, and 2001 seasons before being traded to the Atlanta Falcons in 2002. Carpenter was injured at the end of the 2003 season, tearing his ACL. Carpenter was also known as one of the few players to have had successful

spinal fusion Spinal fusion, also called spondylodesis or spondylosyndesis, is a surgery performed by Orthopedic surgery#Practice, orthopaedic surgeons or neurosurgeons that joins two or more vertebrae. This procedure can be performed at any level in the spine ...

surgery who returned to football, playing for three years after the surgery.

Personal life

Carpenter had a wife and four children, three daughters and one son. He was the founder of
The Carpenter House, Inc.
, a non-profit which specialized in consulting under-privileged families with home ownership.

Death

On December 27, 2016, while on vacation in Miami with his family, Carpenter fell and struck his head. He slipped into a coma and died two days later without regaining consciousness.

References

1977 births 2016 deaths Players of American football from Baltimore American football safeties Virginia Tech Hokies football players Buffalo Bills players Atlanta Falcons players Accidental deaths from falls in the United States 20th-century American sportsmen {{defensiveback-1970s-stub