L.A. Dodgers Pitcher Dustin May Recalls Freak Salad Accident That Nearly Killed Him

A piece of lettuce managed to tear his esophagus.

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Dustin May on Feb 13, 2025. / Joe Camporeale-Imagn Images

In July of 2024, the Los Angeles Dodgers broke the news that pitcher Dustin May, who had already been out since the middle of 2023 with a torn flexor tendon in his right arm, would miss the remainder of the season due to an esophageal tear.

At the time, the team said May suffered the tear at dinner one night and required medical intervention to fix it.

Now, in a story published Feb. 14 for the Los Angeles Times, May has for the first time publicly recalled the specifics of the situation, including the bite that did him in: a piece of lettuce from a salad he had ordered while rehabbing at a Dodgers' facility in Arizona.

That tiny piece of lettuce caused a "complete freak accident," as May would describe it, and tore his esophagus so badly he would require emergency surgery.

“It was definitely a life-altering event,” May told the Times. “It was definitely very serious. It’s not a very common surgery. It was definitely an emergency.”

He added: "I probably wouldn’t have made it through the night if I didn’t have it."

The procedure, which was "basically a full abdominal repair," as the right-hander would tell it, would then require six months of recovery, during which he wasn't permitted to lift any weights heavier than 10 pounds.

“It just kind of gives me a different viewpoint on a lot of things in life,” May continued. "Just seeing how something so non-baseball-related can just be like—it can be gone in a second. And the stuff it put my wife through, it definitely gave me [a feeling] of, ‘Wow, stuff can change like that.’ It was definitely very scary.”

Since his start in 2019, May has notched a 3.10 career earned-run average and 174 strikeouts across 46 games played—pretty good numbers. And now that he's back, the 27-year-old still thinks he can perform for L.A. this season like he once did.

“If I’m healthy, I feel like I have a spot on this rotation,” he told the outlet. “I just have to go out and prove that.”

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