Between laughter, tears and smiles, a special dinner/auction to benefit Chance Veazey was held Monday night at the University of Georgia Campus Conference Center in Tifton. Veazey is the University of Georgia freshman who was severely injured in a motor vehicle accident in late October in Athens. The accident has left him paralyzed from the waist down.

Designed to raise money for Veazey's medical expenses, the night got off to a rousing start. As the audience settled in after looking at items up for bid in the silent auction, it was announced country music singer Trisha Yearwood had promised to match all of the money raised during the evening up to $100,000. As of Tuesday, event organizers were not sure how much money was raised, but the total exceeded $100,000, so with Yearwood's contribution the evening generated over $200,000 for Veazey.

The Yearwood announcement was the first of several surprises on the night.

The evening's first speaker was Mike Dillon, the University of Georgia baseball team's athletic trainer.

"I am here — at the insistence of Chance — to update you on his condition," said Dillon.

Before going into Veazey's current condition, Dillon spoke of how the Tifton native and his family have already become a part of his and the baseball team's family.

"I first recognized Chance was a quiet, hard-working young man, that did all of the right things," said Dillon. "During fall practice, he injured his shoulder diving after a ball, and we became close as he underwent treatment."

That continued as Dillon recounted the night of Oct. 28, the date on which Veazey was injured.

Speaking of how he knew all of the emergency medical personnel in the Athens area, as well as the doctors, Dillon said, "When I got there, Chance was still backboarded. He knew what he had. The first thing he said to me was, “I can't feel my legs. I am paralyzed.

"After seeing the CAT scan I knew we were in trouble."

Dillon showed a diagram and then explained Veazey's T10 disc had "slipped out", and the T11 was "crushed."

The UGA trainer explained someone had once said the spinal cord, "was not a cord, but it was instead like a peeled, ripe banana. The problem is you can't sew it back."

In the first days after the accident, Dillon said Veazey received a special visitor.

"When (University of Georgia head football) coach (Mark) Richt came by, it was the first time, Chance had smiled since the accident," said Dillon.

Surgery was done on Veazey, and Dillon explained two rods were bolted on to the spinal cord, and a piece of Veazey's hip bone was also used to help stabilize the area.