Austin played on until last Nov. 3, when he was warming up for the Cowboys' game against the Minnesota Vikings.
"I couldn't stand up. It felt like I didn't have enough space in my back to stand up," Austin said. "I felt like I was going to go until it breaks. We were warming up, and next thing, I was telling (assistant) Coach (Rod) Marinelli, 'I don't know if I'm going to be able to go,' because I didn't want to hurt the team, and I definitely didn't want to get my chest rammed through and be paralyzed messing with Adrian Peterson.
"Then the doctors did an MRI, and they were like, 'No, you can't go, you need surgery,' and I just cried my eyes out, man. I knew my career was over -- being a second-round pick, being cut, and then coming back to that situation, it was over with for me in my mind."
He had a discectomy and a laminotomy, all in his lower back. Part of a disc was removed.
"The disc was probably four centimeters big, and they said it was the biggest disc they'd seen at that level and they didn't understand how I was still walking," said Austin. "So I could have been paralyzed and I played with that for two years. And then they took out some of the bone in my spine to open up my spinal canal, because I was born with a little bit of stenosis."
