At 11:30 p.m. on July 31, 2001, the small DeKalb Peachtree Airport in Atlanta was deserted. No one saw the woman boarding the emergency medic flight. No one knew the small plane was about to fly her straight into a nightmare. No one knew she was lucky to have a seat.

The flight had been arranged and paid for by Randy Moss for Kelci Stringer, wife of his teammate, Pro Bowl offensive tackle Korey Stringer, who lay comatose in a Mankato, Minn., hospital. Kelci sat alone with her Bible and her prayers as the tiny plane bumped above the treetops. Halfway into the flight, she felt a pain deep in her chest. Thoughts of Korey bounced around her head as the plane rocked abruptly. Without warning, they'd flown into the heart of a storm, which would force them to land in Minneapolis, shy of their destination. "I think that's when Korey took that last turn for the worse," Kelci says. "And I wasn't there." There's no malice in her voice, just the emptiness only a single mother, a widow in her 20s, can know.

	The Stringer family had the world at their feet in Minnesota.

Korey Stringer died at 1:50 a.m. on Aug. 1. He was buried five days later, in his hometown of Warren, Ohio. "Big K" was remembered fondly by teammates and family members. Over the next few days and weeks, Kelci Stringer began to piece together the last hours of her husband's life.

His death was painful and, she contends, avoidable. In January, Korey's family filed a $100 million wrongful-death lawsuit against the Minnesota Vikings, alleging gross negligence. (Vikings attorney James O'Neal declined to comment for this story, but noted that "we do intend and expect to defend the lawsuit.") A trial is set for next summer.

Shortly before the anniversary of her husband's death, Kelci Stringer speaks about those last days.

***

The last time I saw Korey alive was the day before training camp. We were in the kitchen. I was getting something together and he was in my face -- you know, leaning in real close. Our 3-year-old, Kodie, came in, and Korey said, 'Come here. Let me talk to you man to man.' He took Kodie to the table, sat down and told me to leave. To this day, I don't know all they talked about, but I know Korey told Kodie to look after Mommy until he got home. That was just like Korey.

I'd finally gotten to the point where I understood training camp. I used to call it Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde time. But I'd learned over the years to give him the space he needed to prepare mentally for camp. Guys at his position get no glory. Every other person on the team gets to touch the ball, gets to celebrate. He had to psyche himself up just to get some satisfaction. It takes a strong person to do that job. Korey was strong. Not just physically, but mentally.

I talked to Korey again after his first day of camp, a Monday night. He told me he'd vomited but didn't have to leave practice early, so he was happy. He wanted to talk to Kodie, but Kodie had already gone to sleep, so Korey promised he'd call him the next day, between practices. But the next day wore on. I started to think it was a little strange that he hadn't called.

I phoned his room. No answer. His cell. No answer. I figured he must be in meetings or looking at film. I knew that eventually he'd call. He always kept his promise.

Just before dinner, the phone rang at my mama's house in Atlanta, where Kodie and I were visiting. It was Buffy Palmer, the wife of David Palmer, one of Korey's former teammates, asking me what was wrong. I didn't know what she was talking about. It was the first time I'd heard Korey was in the hospital.

I still feel like everybody in Minnesota knew something I didn't. Nobody from the Vikings called me. I finally got Cris Carter on the phone, and I asked him, "Is Korey okay?" Cris, who was at the hospital, got real quiet. He began to say my name: "Kelci ... " Right then, I thought he was going to tell me Korey was dead. He said, "I can't tell you he's okay." I talked to the doctor. I asked how long Korey had been there. When he said since 12:30, I lost it: "Why hasn't anybody called me?!"

After I got off the phone, I dropped to my knees and prayed. You'd think I would have said, "Please let him be okay," but instead, I said, "God, please let me be able to deal with the outcome -- whatever it may be." I don't know where it came from, but that scared me.

My mama had found out that the last flight to Minnesota was boarding in 10 minutes. She and my dad live 30 minutes from the airport. The doctors kept asking me if I was coming right away. It was at least a 16-hour drive. The next flight wasn't until 6 a.m. How was I going to get there?

A little after 10 p.m., I called [Vikings medical services coordinator] Fred Zamberletti and asked, "Doesn't [team owner] Red McCombs have a jet?" Fred told me they were working on it. Twenty minutes later, Randy Moss' agent called to tell me to get to the airport, that a plane would be waiting for me. Later, when Randy went back to the hospital, team officials told him the Vikings were working on a plane. He told them, "It's already done."

When the plane landed in Minneapolis, there was no car for me to get to Mankato. A friend in Minneapolis, my neighbor, picked me up. We drove for about an hour and a half. The storm was bad. Nothing but lightning. No rain, just lightning. I kept thinking, "Korey, hold on."

I finally got to the hospital around 3 a.m. The hospital administrator at the front desk said, "Come with me." Neither one of us spoke on the elevator. Mike Tice, Korey's line coach, was waiting for me. I said, "How is he?" Mike turned me around so I could see the pastor walking toward me. Then he said, "We lost him." All I said was "Okay." But I kept thinking, "Oh, my God." And God was there. I was in a serious car accident when I was 14. Ever since, I've had a different perception of death: It's the people around the dying person that make it bad, not the person himself. The person is gone, that's the one concrete thing. Everything else just goes round and round.

I wanted to holler, whoop and wail, but I couldn't. I mean, I tried, but it was like God had picked me up before I'd even asked Him to. It felt like I was hitting a wall. Even though he was gone, I worried about Korey. I still feel so bad for him. I felt more like he got cheated out of his son's life, more than Kodie got cheated out of Korey's.

I walked in the room. Korey was laying in the bed. His grandmother had passed in April, and when I saw him it shocked me how much he looked like she did. He didn't look like he was sleeping. He looked very dead. I said, "Why didn't you wait for me? I was coming."

	Kelci still has plenty of anger over the loss of her husband.

I'd brought along a little family portrait of the three of us and put it on his chest. I talked. I hugged him and kissed him. I tried to open his eyes, but I couldn't. I tried to open his lips. He was clean, but blood was everywhere. He'd hemorrhaged because his organs had failed, just started bleeding out of everywhere. Eyes, nose, everywhere.

All I could think was: How did they let my Korey die? How could they lose him?

I still had to tell Kodie, who was on his way with my parents. The hospital staff wanted to put Korey's body in the morgue, but I kept telling them, "No. His mother is not here and his son is not here. They are going to see him just like I did." They said, "We can put him in the freezer, and then we can wheel him out and put him in a room when they come." I said, "Are you serious? He's dead, what's the hurry? Does somebody else need the room?" They said they wanted to preserve the body. I said, "Preserve it? For what? His son will not see him in some cold room."

But when Kodie got to the hospital, he wouldn't go in to see his dad. I found him playing with toys in the waiting room. I bent down, and I mustered it all up and said, "Kodie, Daddy is dead." He just looked at me -- he knew about Korey's grandmother, and he'd read that book about death and the angels and being with the angels when you die. But when my parents screamed and cried after hearing the news back in Atlanta, Kodie started to laugh, because he thought they were playing a game with him. Finally, he went into Korey's room.

He wouldn't get close, but he stood at the corner of the bed. When my father took him out again, Kodie pointed to a spot away from Korey's body and said, "My daddy is over there. My daddy is dead now."

I've since seen the videotape of Korey on that last day. And it hit me, "Didn't anybody see his eyes?" Korey and I used to joke about the Blank Stare. You know how boxers get when they're just looking through you? Korey had that Blank Stare. He was moving, but he wasn't there. The muscles in his face weren't right. His lip was hanging. But he kept on running.

It makes me mad to hear anyone say Korey died because he was big and didn't take care of himself. Korey was the most well-educated person about hydration. It really is ironic that he died of heat stroke. Water was his remedy for everything.

In a sick, sad way I'm fighting for Korey. You don't do him like that. You don't let him die and nothing good comes of it. I don't want Korey to have died in vain.

I attended every home game last year. The most difficult one was when Korey's jersey was retired. When the stadium announcer didn't call No. 77, I finally knew: Korey was never coming home again.

Kodie is 4 now, and he still talks about "my daddy, my daddy, my daddy." But he never asks where he is or if he's coming home. He'll sit in the car, looking out the window, and I'll say, "What's wrong, Kodie?" And he'll say, "I'm just thinking about Daddy. I miss my daddy."

I miss his daddy too.

This article appears in the August 19 issue of ESPN The Magazine.