DALLAS (AP) - Former Dallas Cowboys running back Ron Springs, who spent the past four years in a coma after losing oxygen during a 2007 operation, has died at age 54 without ever regaining consciousness. Former Cowboys teammate Everson Walls, who donated a kidney to Springs for a transplant, says the Springs family informed him that his friend died about 4:30 p.m. Thursday at Medical City Dallas hospital.
The hospital is where Springs, who played in college at Ohio State, first slipped into the coma in 2007 after undergoing surgery to remove a cyst from his forearm. Walls said the death came as a surprise. He said funeral arrangements are pending. Walls says, ``He was such a worldly person who touched so many lives in every area code.''