CHARLOTTE — Rookie outside linebacker Nic Scourton, who was hospitalized in Houston Thursday night with a collapsed lung, was back outside and moving around on Monday afternoon.

"Huge improvement," Panthers head coach Dave Canales said with a big smile, when asked about the condition of the second-round pick.

That's not necessarily what they were expecting, the way the events of last week unfolded.

Scourton left the joint practice with the Texans with what was initially thought to be heat-related symptoms. But once they got him back to the team hotel, further checks by the team's medical staff showed it was more serious than that.

So he was taken to Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center, where he spent the night for observation. Friday, they loaded him up with his family and a member of the team's athletic training staff for the long ride back to Charlotte (around 17 hours) in a three-row midsize SUV.

At that point, teammates thought he had just cramped, and by the time some realized the severity, he was already on the way home.

But Monday afternoon as the team practiced, he was running on the side, a welcome sight after a diagnosis that is not within the normal scope of football injuries. He was in shorts and a long-sleeve T-shirt, wearing the harness they use to collect GPS data, and working a pretty good sweat as he ran something less than full sprints.

Canales said that he wasn't going to play in Thursday's preseason finale, but otherwise the signs were promising.

"Significant improvement, he was actually running today," Canales said. "They were monitoring really closely, checking his oxygen levels, everything.

"Huge improvements. That guy's 20 years old, so he he bounced back pretty quick. The hope is to just continue to just progressing daily and get him more and more work."

After the scare in Houston, that's the best news possible.