captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> this is what it takes to enter a facility where they manufacture microchips, the tiny semiconductors that power everything from smart phones, to automobiles, to fighter jets. problem is, there is a shortage of them, revealing a serious national security issue. >> 25 years ago, the united states produced 37% of the world's semiconductor manufacturing in the u.s. today, that number has declined to just 12%. >> doesn't sound good. ( ticking )

>> to the pentagon, these are known as unidentified aerial phenomena, but what they are and where they come from remain a mystery, even after a government investigation. what do you think when you see something like this? >> this is a difficult one to explain. you have rotation, you have high altitudes, you have propulsion, right? i don't know. i don't know what it is, frankly. ( ticking ) >> sometimes, athletes do remarkable things that have nothing to do with sports, and the comeback of alex smith fits that description like few things we have ever seen. what is a compound spiral fracture? >> he had a fracture that extended from his ankle joint up to his knee joint. so, it spiraled all the way up the tibia. and then he had a piece of bone sticking out of his skin. >> here we go. >> tonight, a story about character, from our nation's capitol. ( cheering ) ( ticking )

>> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm norah o'donnell. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories, tonight, on "60 minutes." ( ticking ) you're not welcome here! get out of my face! hpv can cause certain cancers when your child grows up. get in its way. hpv can affect males and females. and there's no way to predict who will or won't clear the virus. the cdc recommends hpv vaccination at age 11 or 12 to help protect against certain cancers. hey... cancer! not... my... child. don't wait. talk to your child's doctor about hpv vaccination today.

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>> stahl: car companies across the globe have had to idle production and workers because of a shortage of semiconductors, often referred to as microchips, or just chips. they're the tiny operating brains inside just about every modern device, like smartphones, hospital ventilators, even

fighter jets. as we first reported in may, the pandemic sent chip demand soaring unexpectedly as we bought computers and electronics to work, study, and play from home. but, while more and more chips are needed in the u.s., fewer intel is the biggest americanre. chipmaker. its most advanced fabrication plant, or fab for short, is located outside phoenix, arizona. new c.e.o. pat gelsinger invited us on a tour to see how incredibly complex the manufacturing process is. first, we had to suit up to avoid contaminating the fab-- head-cover, on; bunny suit, zipped; goggles, gloves, ready to go. i'm pristine! >> pat gelsinger: everything in this environment is controlled.

>> stahl: together, we stepped into a place with some of the most sophisticatednogy on h. i need to ask you why we're all yellow? yellow filters remove light rays that are harmful to the process. overhead, a computerized highway transports materials from one machine to the next. the process involves thousands of steps, where layer upon layer of microscopic circuitry is etched onto these silicon plates that are then chopped up into chips that will end up in, say, your computer. making just one can take six months. >> gelsinger: you see, each one of these is a chip. >> stahl: is a chip. i'm surprised. i thought chips were minute. >> gelsinger: well, each one of these chips has maybe a billion transistors on it. >> stahl: oh, my goodness! >> gelsinger: so, there's a billion little circuits inside of it that are all on one of these chips. and then, one wafer could have 100 or 1,000 chips on it. >> stahl: intel's goal is to

keep shrinking the transistors' size, so you can pile more of them on a chip to make it more powerful and work faster. >> gelsinger: every one of these is laying down circuits that are so much smaller than anything-- your hair, you know, any other part of human existence. you know, a covid particle is way bigger than one of the lines that we're creating here. >> stahl: how much does this fab cost? >> gelsinger: $10 billion. >> stahl: billion? >> gelsinger: $10 billion. because each one of these pieces of equipment is maybe $5 million. that's a lot of millions of dollars. >> stahl: chips differ in size and sophistication, depending on their end-use. intel doesn't presently make many chips for the auto sector, but because of the shortage, it's planning to reconfigure some of its fabs to start churning them out. i'm wondering if we're going to continue to have shortages, not just in cars, but in our phones and for our computers, for everything? >> gelsinger: i think we have a

couple of years until we catch up to this surging demand across every aspect of the business. >> stahl: covid showed that the global supply chain of chips is fragile, and unable to react quickly to changes in demand. one reason? fabs are wildly expensive to build, furbish, and maintain. it used to be that there were 25 companies in the world that made the high-end, cutting-edge chips. and now, there are only three. and in the united states? you. >> gelsinger: yeah. >> stahl: one. one. today, 75% of semiconductor manufacturing is in asia. >> gelsinger: 25 years ago, the united states produced 37% of the world's semiconductor manufacturing in the u.s. today, that number has declined to just 12%. >> stahl: doesn't sound good. >> gelsinger: it doesn't sound good, and anybody who looks at the supply chain says, "that's a problem." >> stahl: a problem because

relying on one region, especially one as unpredictable as asia, is highly risky. intel has been lobbying the u.s. government to help revive chip manufacturing at home with incentives, subsidies, and/or tax breaks, the way the governments of taiwan, singapore, and israel have done. the white house is responding, proposing $50 billion for the semiconductor industry in the u.s. as part of president biden's infrastructure plan. >> president joe biden: this is infrastructure! >> stahl: your business is extremely lucrative. in terms of revenue, you made $78 billion last year. why should the government come into a company, a business, that's doing so well overall? >> gelsinger: this is a big, critical industry, and we want more of it on american soil-- the jobs that we want in america, the control of our long-term technology future. and, as we've also said, the disruptions in the supply chain. >> stahl: you have spent much

more in stock buybacks than you have in research and development. a lot more. >> gelsinger: we will not be anywhere near as focused on buybacks going forward as we have in the past, and that's been reviewed as part of my coming into the company, agreed upon with the board of directors. >> stahl: why shouldn't private industry fund this, instead of the government? the industries that rely on these chips-- apple, microsoft, the companies that are rolling in money? >> gelsinger: well, they're pretty happy to buy from some of the asian suppliers. >> stahl: actually, they don't always have a choice. for chips with the tiniest transistors, there's no "made in the u.s." option. intel currently doesn't have the know-how to manufacture the most advanced chips that apple and the others need. the decline in this industry, it's kind of devastating, isn't it? >> gelsinger: the fact that this industry was created by

american innovation... >> stahl: the whole silicon valley idea started with intel. >> gelsinger: yeah. you know, the company stumbled. it's still a big company; we had some product stumbles, some manufacturing and process stumbles. >> stahl: perhaps the biggest stumble was in the early 2000s, when steve jobs of apple needed chips for a new idea: the iphone. intel wasn't interested, and apple went to asia, eventually finding t.s.m.c., the taiwan semiconductor manufacturing company-- today, the world's most advanced chip manufacturer, producing chips that are 30% faster and more powerful than intel's. they're ahead of you on the manufacturing side. >> gelsinger: yeah. >> stahl: considerably ahead of you. >> gelsinger: we believe it's going to take us a couple of years, and we will be caught up. >> stahl: gelsinger is making big bets-- breaking ground on two new giant fabs in arizona costing $20 billion, intel's

largest investment ever. and, he announced in may a $3.5 billion upgrade of this fab in new mexico. but t.s.m.c. is a manufacturing juggernaut worth over a half- trillion dollars. collaborating with clients to produce their chip designs, it's been sought out by apple, amazon, contractors for the u.s. military-- and even intel, which uses t.s.m.c. to produce its cutting-edge designs they're not advanced enough to make themselves. how and why did intel fall behind? >> mark liu: it is surprising for us, too. >> stahl: we spoke remotely with t.s.m.c. chairman mark liu at the company headquarters in hsinchu, taiwan. his company is a leading supplier of the chips that go into american cars. in march 2020, as covid paralyzed the u.s., car sales tumbled, leading auto makers to

cancel their chip orders. so t.s.m.c. stopped making them. that's why, when car sales unexpectedly bounced back late last year, there was a shortage of chips, leaving cars with no power parked in carmakers' lots, costing them billions. >> liu: we heard about this shortage in december timeframe, and, in january, we tried to squeeze as more chip as possible to the car company. in car chips particularly, the supply chain is long and complex. the supply takes about seven to eight months. >> stahl: should americans be concerned that most chips are being manufactured in asia today? >> liu: i understand their concern, first of all, but this is not about asia or not asia. i mean, the shortage will happen no matter where the production is located, because it's due to the covid. >> stahl: but pat gelsinger at

intel talks about a need to re-balance the supply chain issue because so much, so many of the chips in the world now are made in asia. >> liu: i think u.s. ought to pursue to run faster, to invest in r&d, to produce more ph.d., master, bachelor students to get into this manufacturing field, instead of trying to move the supply chain, which is very costly and really not-- non-productive. that will slow down the innovation, because people trying to hold on their technology to their own and forsake the global collaboration. >> stahl: within the world of global collaboration, there's intense competition. days after intel announced spending $20 billion on two new fabs, t.s.m.c. announced it would spend $100 billion over three years on r&d, upgrades,

and a new fab in phoenix, arizona-- intel's backyard-- where the taiwanese company will produce the chips apple needs but the americans can't make. >> liu: that was a big investment. >> stahl: but there's a looming shadow over t.s.m.c., which supplies chips for our cars, iphones, and the supercomputer managing our nuclear stockpile: china's president xi jinping, who has intensified his long- time threat to seize taiwan. china's attempts to develop its own advanced chip industry have failed, and so it's been forced to import chips. but last year, washington imposed restrictions on chipmakers from exporting certain semiconductors to china. th liu andsi calang trade wh in may backfire, and in intel's case, could hurt business. are they your biggest customer?

>> gelsinger: china is one of our largest markets today. you know, over 25% of our revenue is due to chinese customers. we expect that this will remain an area of tension, and one that needs to be navigated carefully, because if there's any points that people can't keep running their countries or running their businesses because of supply of one critical component like semiconductors, boy, that leads them to take very extreme postures on things because they have to. >> stahl: the most extreme would be china invading taiwan, and in the process, gaining control of t.s.m.c. that could force the u.s. to defend taiwan, as we did kuwait from the iraqis 30 years ago. then, it was oil; now, it's chips. the chip industry in taiwan has been called the silicon shield. >> liu: yes. >> stahl: what does that mean? >> liu: that means the world all needs taiwan's high-tech

industry support, so they will not let the war happen in this region because it goes against interest of every country in the world. >> stahl: do you think that, in any way, your industry is-- is keeping taiwan safe? >> liu: i cannot comment on the safety. i mean, this is a changing world. nobody want these things to happen. and i hope-- i hope not, too, either. >> stahl: despite the global push to ramp up production, the news is still grim. some industry leaders and analysts expect the shortage to last deep into 2022, or even 2023. ( ticking ) (judith) in this market, you'll find fisher investments is different than other money managers. (other money manager) different how? don't you just ride the wave? (judith) no - we actively manage client portfolios based on our forward-looking views of the market. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate

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summer, the director of national intelligence and secretary of defense released a highly-anticipated, unclassified report about something the pentagon calls "unidentified aerial phenomena," or u.a.p., more commonly known as u.f.o.s. the government's grudging acknowledgment of 144 mysterious sightings, documented by our military, comes after decades of public denial. but as we first reported in may, whatever is trespassing in our skies and seas poses a serious safety risk to our servicemen and women, as well as our national security. so, what you are telling me is that u.f.o.s-- unidentified flying objects-- are real? >> luis elizondo: bill, i think we're beyond that already. the government has already stated for the record that they're real. i'm not telling you that. the united states government is telling you that. >> whitaker: luis elizondo spent 20 years running military

intelligence operations worldwide, in afghanistan, the middle east, and guantanamo. he hadn't given u.f.o.s a second thought, until 2008. that's when he was asked to join something at the pentagon called the advanced aerospace threat identification program, or "aatip." >> elizondo: the mission of aatip was quite simple. it was to collect and analyze information involving anomalous aerial vehicles-- what i guess in the vernacular, you call them u.f.o.s. we call them u.a.p.s. >> whitaker: you know how this sounds? it sounds nutty, wacky. >> elizondo: look, bill, i'm not-- i'm not telling you that-- that it doesn't sound wacky. what i'm telling you, it's real. the question is, what is it? what are its intentions? what are its capabilities? >> whitaker: buried away in the pentagon, aatip was part of a $22 million program sponsored by then-senate majority leader harry reid to investigate u.f.o.s. when elizondo took over in 2010l

security implications of unidentified aerial phenomena documented by u.s. service members. >> elizondo: imagine a technology that can do 600 to 700 g-forces, that can fly at 13,000 miles an hour, that can evade radar, and that can fly through air and water and possibly space. and, oh, by the way, has no obvious signs of propulsion. no wings, no control surfaces, and yet still can defy the natural effects of earth's gravity. that's precisely what we're seeing. >> whitaker: elizondo tells us aatip was a loose-knit mix of scientists, electro-optical engineers, avionics and intelligence experts, often working part-time. they combed through data and records, and analyzed videos like this. >> whoa! got it! ( laughs ) >> whitaker: a navy aircrew struggles to lock on to a fast-moving object off the u.s. atlantic coast in 2015. >> look at it fly!

>> whitaker: recently released images may not convince u.f.o. skeptics, but the pentagon admits it doesn't know what in the world this is-- or this. or this. so, what do you say to the skeptics? it's refracted light? weather balloons? a rocket being launched? venus? >> elizondo: in some cases, there are simple explanations for what people are witnessing. but there are some that-- that are not. we're not just simply jumping to a conclusion that's saying, "oh, that's a u.a.p. out there." we're going through our due diligence. is it some sort of new type of crude missile technology that china has developed? is it some sort of high-altitude balloon that's conducting reconnaissance? ultimately, when you have exhausted all those what-ifs and you're still left with the fact that this is in our airspace and it's real, that's when it becomes compelling, and that's when it becomes problematic.

>> whitaker: former navy pilot lieutenant ryan graves calls whatever is out there a security risk. he told us his f-18 squadron began seeing u.a.p.s hovering over restricted airspace southeast of virginia beach in 2014, when they updated their jet's radar, making it possible to zero in with infrared targeting cameras. so, you're seeing it both with the radar and with the infrared. and that tells you that there is something out there? >> ryan graves: pretty hard to spoof that. >> whitaker: these photographs were taken in 2019 in the same area. the pentagon confirms these are images of objects it can't identify. lieutenant graves told us, pilots training off the atlantic coast see things like that all the time. >> graves: every day. every day for at least a couple years. >> whitaker: wait a minute, every day for a couple of years? >> graves: mm-hmm. i don't see an exhaust plume. >> whitaker: including this one,

off the coast of jacksonville,fa taeting came graves' squadron. >> pilot: look at that thing! it's rotating! my gosh! they're all going against the wind. the wind's 120 knots to the west. look at that thing, dude! >> whitaker: you can sort of hear the surprise in their voices. >> graves: you certainly can. they seem to have broke character a bit and were just kind of amazed at what they were seeing. >> whitaker: what do you think when you see something like this? >> graves: this is a difficult one to explain. you have rotation, you have high altitudes, you have propulsion, right? i don't know. i don't know what it is, frankly. >> whitaker: he told us pilots speculate they are one of three things: secret u.s. technology; an adversary's spy vehicle; or something otherworldly. >> graves: i would say, you know, the highest probability is, it's a threat observation program. >> whitaker: could it be russian or chinese technology? >> graves: i don't see why not.

>> whitaker: are you alarmed? >> graves: i am worried, frankly. you know, if these were tactical jets from another country that were hanging out up there, it would be a massive issue. but because it looks slightly different, we're not willing to actually look at the problem in the face. we're happy to just ignore the fact that these are out there, watching us every day. >> whitaker: the government has ignored it, at least publicly, since closing its "project blue book" investigation in 1969. but that began to change after an incident off southern california in 2004, which was documented by radar, by camera, and four naval aviators. we spoke to two of them: david fravor, a graduate of the top gun naval flight school and commander of the f-18 squadron on the u.s.s. "nimitz"; and, flying at his wing, lieutenant alex dietrich, who has never spoken publicly about the encounter. >> alex dietrich: i never wanted to be on national tv. no oense. >> whitaker: winthis? auas in a government aircraft, because i

was on the clock, and so i feel a responsibility to-- to share what i can. and it is unclassified. >> whitaker: it was november 2004, and the u.s.s. "nimitz" carrier strike group was training about 100 miles southwest of san diego. for a week, the advanced new radar on a nearby ship, the u.s.s. "princeton," had detected what operators called "multiple anomalous aerial vehicles" over the horizon, descending 80,000 feet in less than a second. on november 14, fravor and dietrich, each with a weapons systems officer in the backseat, were diverted to investigate. they found an area of roiling whitewater the size of a 737 in an otherwise calm, blue sea. >> david fravor: so, as we're looking at this, her back-seater says, "hey, skipper, do you..." and about that got out, i said, "dude, do you-- do you see that thing down there?"

and we saw this little white tic-tac-looking object, and it's just kind of moving above the whitewater area. >> whitaker: as dietrich circled above, fravor went in for a closer look. so, you're sort of spiraling down? >> fravor: yep. the tic tac's still pointing north-south. it goes click, and just turns abruptly and starts mirroring me. so, as i'm coming down, it starts coming up. >> whitaker: so, it's mimicking your moves? >> fravor: yeah. it was aware we were there. >> whitaker: he said it was about the size of his f-18, with no markings, no wings, no exhaust plumes. >> fravor: i want to see how close i can get. so, i go like this, and it's climbing still. and when it gets right in front of me, it just disappears. >> whitaker: disappears? >> fravor: disappears. like, gone. >> whitaker: it had sped off. what are you thinking? >> dietrich: so, your mind tries to make sense of it: "i'm going to categorize this as maybe a helicopter, or maybe a drone." and when it disappeared, i mean, it was just... >> whitaker: did your back- seaters see this, too? >> dietrich: yeah. >> fravor: oh, yeah. there was four of us in the

airplanes literally watching this thing for roughly about five minutes. >> whitaker: seconds later, the "princeton" reacquired the target, 60 miles away. another crew managed to briefly lock on to it with a targeting camera, before it zipped off again. >> dietrich: you know, i think that, over beers, we've sort of said, "hey, man, if i saw this solo, i don't know that i would have come back and said anything," because it sounds so crazy when i say it. >> whitaker: you understand that reaction? >> fravor: i do. i've had some people tell me, you know, "when you say that, you can sound crazy." i'll be honest, i'm not a u.f.o. guy. >> whitaker: but from what i hear you guys saying, there's something? >> dietrich: yes. >> fravor: oh, there's-- there's definitely something that-- i dont know who's building it, who's got the technology, who's got the brains, but there's-- there's something out there that was better than our airplane. >> whitaker: the aircrew filed reports. then, like the mysterious flying object, the "nimitz" encounter disappeared. nothing was said or done

officially for five years, until lue elizondo came across the story and investigated. >> elizondo: we spend millions of dollars in training these pilots, and they are seeing something that they can't explain. furthermore, that information's being backed up on electro- optical data, like gun camera footage, and by radar data. now, to me, that's compelling. >> whitaker: inside the pentagon, his findings were met with skepticism. aatip's funding was eliminated in 2012, but elizondo says he and a handful of others kept the mission alive, until, finally frustrated, he quit the pentagon in 2017. but not before getting these three videos declassified. and then, things took a stranger turn. >> christopher mellon: i tried to help my colleague, lue elizondo, elevate the issue in the department and actually get it to the secretary of defense. >> whitaker: christopher mellon served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for intelligence for presidents clinton and george w. bush, and had access to top secret

government programs. >> mellon: so, it's not us. that's one thing we know. >> whitaker: we know that? >> mellon: i can say that with a very high degree of confidence, in part because of the positions i held in the department, and i know the process. >> whitaker: mellon says he grew concerned nothing was being done about u.a.p.s, so he decided to do something. in 2017, as a private citizen, he surreptitiously acquired the three navy videos elizondo had declassified and leaked them to the "new york times." >> mellon: it's bizarre and unfortunate that someone like myself has to do something like that to get a national security issue like this on the agenda. >> whitaker: he joined forces with now-civilian lue elizondo, and they started to tell their story to anybody who would listen-- to newspapers, the history channel, to members of congress. >> mellon: we knew and understood that you had to go to the public, get the public interested, to get congress interested, to then circle back to the defense department and

get them to start taking a look at it. >> whitaker: and now, it is. last year, the pentagon resurrected aatip-- it's now called the u.a.p. task force. service members now are encouraged to report strange encounters, and the senate wants answers. >> senator marco rubio: anything that enters an airspace, that's not supposed to be there, is a threat. >> whitaker: after receiving classified briefings on u.a.p.s, senator marco rubio called for a detailed analysis. this past december, while he was still head of the intelligence committee, he asked the director of national intelligence and the pentagon to present congress an unclassified report by next month. this is a bizarre issue. the pentagon and other branches of the military have a long history of sort of dismissing this. what makes you think that this time's going to be different? >> rubio: we're going to find out, when we get that report. you know, there's a stigma on capitol hill-- i mean, some of my colleagues are very interested in this topic, and some kind of, you know, giggle when you bring it up.

but i don't think we can allow the stigma to keep us from having an answer to a very fundamental question. >> whitaker: what do you want us to do about this? >> rubio: i want us to take it seriously, and have a process to take it seriously. i want us to have a process to analyze the data every time it comes in, that there be a place where this is cataloged and constantly analyzed until we get some answers. maybe it has a very simple answer. maybe it doesn't. >> whitaker: a few weeks after our story aired, the director of national intelligence released an unclassified report saying u.a.p. probably lack a single explanation, but that some "appear to demonstrate advanced technology," meriting "further analysis." ( ticking ) >> cbs sports hq is presented by progressive insurances. i'm red silver with sports news today.

>> it's the final day of the nfl pre-season, the jaguars defeated the cowboys. lawrence threw for 139 yards. >> and braves shut out the giants, and the white sox won against the cross town rife willal cubs. 24/7 news and highlights, visit cbs hq.com. but we also bundle outdoor vehicles with home and auto to help people save more! [ laughs ] ♪ [ humming ] [ door creaks ] oh. [ soft music playing ] what are you all doing in my daydream? it's better than that presentation. a lot better. you know, whether it's a fraction or a decimal, it's still fun, you know?

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( ticking ) >> o'donnell: if you are looking for strength and character in the nation's capital these days, look no further than the story of alex smith. nearly three years ago, the washington quarterback suffered a crippling injury that almost led to the amputation of his right leg. it would have been a brutal end to the long career of a man who was once the first overall draft pick in the n.f.l., and a three-time pro-bowler. instead, as we first reported last january, smith defied expectations by rehabbing the way injured special forces do. tonight, a look back at one of the greatest comebacks in sports history. ( cheers ) it all began on november 18, 2018, when alex smith led

washington as quarterback againse ustoxans and pass rushers kareem jackson and j.j. watt crashed through his offensive line. >> alex smith: it was one of those plays as a quarterback, you know, "okay, they got us--" you know, "secure the football and-- and just kind of get down. >> announcer: there goes alex smith, down at the 40-yard line. alex smith is down. >> alex smith: i immediately knew that it was broken. >> o'donnell: you could see it, or you felt it? >> alex smith: the visual was the most alarming thing for me, to look down and know that my leg was broken, it wasn't straight-- bending in a place it shouldn't bend. >> dr. robin west: alex isn't a guy who goes down a lot. i had never run on the field for him.onll. robin west was the washington football team's head physician. last season was her 18th in the n.f.l. >> dr. west: and i realized >> o'donnell: just so detand, w? >> dr. west: he had a fracture

that extended from his ankle joint up to his knee joint. so, it spiraled all the way up the tibia. and then he had a piece of bone sticking out of his skin. >> o'donnell: how often do injuries like this happen in football? >> dr. west: like this? no. very, very rarely. >> o'donnell: after watching from the stands, alex smith's wife, elizabeth, rushed down to be with her husband. do you remember what he said to you in the ambulance? >> elizabeth smith: yes. he wanted me to pull the game up on my phone. he wanted to know the score, he wanted to know how the offense was doing. he was not even worried about his leg whatsoever. he was worried about his team. >> o'donnell: a team of orthopedic trauma surgeons was waiting to operate at inova fairfax hospital in virginia. they put smith's leg back together with three plates and 28 screws and pins. after surgery, the x-rays looked good, but what dr. west and her colleagues could not see was, bacteria-- she thinks from washington's football field-- had infected the open wound on smith's leg. >> alex smith: there, in those

couple days after, is when it-- it, you know, quickly-- quickly got sideways. >> elizabeth smith: his blood pressure's dropping, his fever was skyrocketing, and that's when i knew it was a lot worse than we ever anticipated. >> o'donnell: not many diagnoses sound worse than necrotizing fasciitis, more commonly known as flesh-eating bacteria. as the infection ravaged smith's leg, his body reacted by developing stage-two sepsis, a dangerous condition that can damage organs and lead to death. and his infection just keeps getting worse. what's going through your mind? >> elizabeth smith: i'm obviously more worried about his life. he is septic. and, you know, you hear all these staggering numbers on when people go septic. >> o'donnell: at one point, elizabeth smith asked to speak to dr. west privately. his medical team was already considering the amputation of her husband's right leg. >> dr. west: she said just-- just to get rid of it. "i just want him to live and walk out of here."

so, we talked to his family, and his father had a similar view. and then we went to alex, but he said, "do what you can to save my leg. do anything you can to save it." >> o'donnell: smith underwent eight operations in ten days to carefully remove all the dead or infected tissue. what did alex smith's leg look like? >> dr. west: bone, basically. all he had was his calf muscle and his tibia and his fibula. >> alex smith: we were in the hospital approximately a month. they had to remove quite a bit of muscle and tissue from my lower leg in order to-- to get the infection under control. and then, faced with the reality that, "hey, we--" you know, "we-- we still might have to cut off your leg." and for me, that-- to hear those words-- hard to deal with, as a professional athlete, and someone that-- that really-- i-- i mean, i think i took that for granted for so long-- my body, my health. yeah. >> o'donnell: the most basic thing people take for granted. >> alex smith: yeah. no doubt. just wondering, like, i mean, would i ever be able to go on

walks with my wife? would i ever be able to play with my kids? crazy reality. and-- so yeah, really thankful to be here. >> o'donnell: surgeons covered smith's bones so they would heal, partly by removing a portion of his left thigh muscle and placing it on his lower right leg. >> elizabeth smith: you got this. how's that feel? >> alex smith: i'm afraid to put too much weight on it. >> o'donnell: his leg was also fitted with a piece of hardware called an external fixator. >> alex smith: it looks medieval, but it's really advanced orthopedics. and so i wear this metal cage that's bolted into and pinned into my leg, and it holds my leg and bone in place, while it heals. >> o'donnell: how long did you have to wear the fixator? >> alex smith: yeah, it was almost ten months i wore this bolted in my leg. it was a long process. >> o'donnell: the center for the intrepid in san antonio was specifically built to help wounded warriors through that process.

dr. west reached out to her friend, johnny owens, who for ten years had been the center's chief physical therapist. had you seen a lot of injuries that were similar to what alex had? >> johnny owens: i have. that was the hallmark injury of-- of the wars, was these lower leg injuries from blast traumas, stepping on landmines. >> o'donnell: smith requested and received special permission from the pentagon to visit and consult with the center for the intrepid's staff. >> owens: we saw hundreds of alex smiths come through this door with those type of injuries and-- and said, you're going to be able to run. you're going to be able to do all these type of things that-- that people told you, you weren't going to be able to do. >> dr. joe alderete: i'm going to have you push down on the gas pedal for me. a o'donnell: dr. joe alderete >> dr.lde:rom e me beyes ttn be- either blast injury, roadside bomb, cancer.

that look is binary. it's "you will succeed" or "you will fail." and alex had the look of success. there you go, alex. >> o'donnell: during smith's first trip to the center for the intrepid just a few months after his injury, the espn program "e60" recorded a major milestone in his recovery. >> johnny owens: first throw since... ? >> alex smith: november 18th. >> o'donnell: what happened when you tossed alex a football for the first time? >> owens: two things. he almost broke my ribs because i didn't catch the ball right. and second, there was, like, that spark in his eye. it-- it was so cool. i think it was like a light bulb went off. >> o'donnell: smith says he was humbled and inspired to be around service members, some with injuries similar to his own, who were not only running, but returning to duty. >> alex smith: the rest of the world was telling me, "temp--" yeah, "go be happy about the rest of your life and-- and

hopefully you save your leg, and-- and that'd be great. and, you know, whatever youthatn the cake." and that was not the mentality down there-- >> o'donnell: at the center for intrepid. >> alex smith: that was the exact opposite-- that it's okay to dream about playing again. it was okay for-- for the service men and women, if they wanted to go back and try and serve, and to do triathlons, and-- and-- and be elite. to go chase it. and that-- >> o'donnell: no mental limitations. >> alex smith: no, no. >> o'donnell: through thousands of hours of physical therapy, and with the help of various braces and orthotics, smith would re-learn to walk... then run, and eventually move like a quarterback again, sometimes with the help of his wife, elizabeth. alex smith first threw a football as a toddler. he says he always wanted to be a quarterback, and despite being recruited by harvard and princeton... >> alex smith. >> o'donnell: ...chose to play football at the university of utah. >> the san francisco 49ers select alex smith, quarterback,

utah. >> o'donnell: after being selected by the 49ers as the first overall pick in the 2005 draft, ahead of quarterback aaron rodgers, smith struggled with injuries and consistency, but after a move to kansas city in 2013, played the best football of his career. then the team drafted a young quarterback from texas tech. what's the name of that guy again who replaced you at kansas city? >> alex smith: yeah. ( laughter ) don't know if you ever heard of him. pretty good player. >> o'donnell: patrick mahomes was the m.v.p. of super bowl liv, but spent 2017 as alex smith's backup and understudy. >> patrick mahomes: he didn't hold anything back from me. i mean, he taught me. that's just the type of person he was and that he is. and i'm-- i attribute a lot of my success to him. >> alex smith: i think the thing that jumps out to me, from our relationship, is from day one, relationhe mutual respect, and , just, you know, what a good person he was.

>> o'donnell: how did you mentor him? >> alex smith: i was going to be a good teammate. i wasn't going to be selfish. you know, i-- i signed up to play a team sport and was going to do my part. >> o'donnell: last summer, at the age of 36, after 17 surgeries and 20 months out of the game, alex smith was medically cleared to rejoin the washington football team, despite the fact that his tibia bone was not yet 100% healed. but after everything that you've gone through, why would you risk it? >> alex smith: i'm not crazy. i was-- i wasn't going to do this if i didn't, you know, obviously hear from the experts. and so to hear finally from the experts that, "okay, you can." for me, a bit of a gut check, you know. do i really want to do this? do i put myself out there, walk across those white lines potentially again in live action. >> o'donnell: exhilarating, or nerve-wracking? >> alex smith: both.neouldn' actually play in a game until week five, when the starting quarterback got hurt against the los angeles rams.

three plays in, smith was sacked by all-pro tackle aaron donald. and then, he got right back up. watching on tv-- while deployed in iraq-- was dr. joe alderete. >> dr. alderete: i was so proud of alex-- sorry-- and-- and all that he had achieved. >> o'donnell: you were emotional then, watching that. >> dr. alderete: i was. i was totally blown away. i didn't know whether i w-- i wanted to cheer or throw up. it scared me to death, but i-- i just loved watching alex achieve. >> up tall, there we go. >> o'donnell: dr. alderete says the only other patients he's seen achieve similar outcomes are the most elite u.s. special forces. so you've worked with almost 1,000 limb salvage patients. how many have been able to get back to the type of functionality that alex smith has? >> dr. alderete: less than a dozen. alex is my capstone patient, of

somebody who absolutely knocked it out of the park. >> o'donnell: smith went on to record a five-and-one record as a starter. washington beat arch-rivals the cowboys on thanksgiving day, and in their next game, ruined the steelers' undefeated season. >> seth blee: i want to resist from your heel. okay, ready? >> o'donnell: the day after he helped washington clinch the n.f.c. east and a spot in the playoffs, smith was sore and needed some physical therapy. he had missed the prior two games because of a bone bruise on, yes, his salvaged right leg. >> blee: does that feel like pain, at that spot? >> alex smith: yeah. >> o'donnell: washington's coaches kept him out of the playoff match-up against tom brady and tampa bay, which won the game. afterwards, the greatest of all time made it a point to pay his respects, to the triumph of alex smith's comeback. >> tom brady: hey, so proud of you, bro. you're unbelievable, you know that? >> o'donnell: and despite the end of his season, the comeback

might not have been over. >> alex smith: this year has-- has only emboldened-- for me, that i can, you know, play at this level. i feel like i've had a lot of people reach out to me, saying they feel like my mom, you know, when i'm playing. ( laughter ) and how concerned they are for me. >> elizabeth smith: i understand people's apprehension. i have the same apprehensions. but i think it's bigger than football. that's what i tell people. it's not about the game. it's about what happened and getting back on your feet and dusting yourself off, no matter what the obstacle is. >> o'donnell: this past off-season, alex smith made the difficult decision to retire from the n.f.l. but he's not done with the game. this season, he will work as a football analyst for espn. ( ticking ) >> for more on tonight's stories, including additional details on the "nimitz" encounter, go to 60minutesovertime.com. sponsored by cologuard.

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( ticking ) >> stahl: i'm lesley stahl. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes."

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