When Owen Hart screwed up the execution of a piledriver at SummerSlam 1997, it left Steve Austin's head exposed in a way which could have killed the WWF's biggest star. Hart had meant to have taken the gravitational velocity onto his own rear and legs, but instead he positioned Austin in a way where all force went on to Austin's neck. The effect was a crush upward from the solid mat and crush downward from Owen's force and Austin's weight. This load into Austin's neck could have resulted in death, at the very least he could have been left a quadriplegic who never walked again. Luckily for Austin he walked away from the incident, he managed to rehab the injury, eventually undergoing surgery to alleviate some of the complications. However, the ramifications were still bad, it might have been the better case scenario, but the neck was still devastated from Owen's botch. The biggest WWF star of all time ended up having to retire from competing early in 2003.
