Broken leg turns out to be the experience of a lifetime

By Scott Bryant
Hurricane High School

Click on thumbnail to see full image.

I’m a sophomore in high school who played football for a year in middle school and baseball for eight years.

For two years, I’ve been a member of the marching band and a show choir instrumentalist.

I’ve never had a serious injury. Sure, there were the times I cut myself on the spit valve of my trumpet or got a bruise from an unfortunate scaffold fall, but nothing serious.

It was Election Day, Bush vs. Gore. But there was another melee taking place between my worthy adversary and me. Unlike the election, it didn’t take long to find a victor.

I was playing football with a bunch of my band friends on a soccer field at Valley Park in Hurricane. Trying to be safe, we decided to move the soccer goals. It didn’t take us long to conclude that the weight of a soccer goal is going to go to the top and make it top-heavy when it is picked up.

With my luck, I happened to be the innocent bystander the soccer goal chose to land on. The regulation-size goal fell right on my leg between my knee and ankle, instantly breaking my tibia and fibula.

My friends, God bless them, had cell phones that they used to call an ambulance. Meanwhile, my friend Mike Price single-handedly picked the soccer goal up off my leg (believe me, there are disputes on who exactly picked it up, but I don’t want to get into that).

The paramedics splinted me and took me on my seven-minute, $200 ambulance ride (hey, gas prices must’ve been soaring) to Putnam General Hospital. After about two hours or so in the emergency room, my leg (with the amazing foot that could lie on either side horizontally with my knee moving) and I were transported into a private room complete with all the amenities (TV and bathroom — I was living the good life).

I was informed by a resident doctor that my orthopedic surgeon would be in to talk about the operation I was going to have the next day. That nearly gave my mother a heart attack, considering we hadn’t seen a doctor in about two hours.

Later, my surgeon, Dr. Manuel Molina, talked to my parents and me about the procedure. He would have to go in and set my fibula and put a plate and pin in my tibia. I slept in the clothes I had worn to play football earlier that day, which were soiled and torn from the putty splint the paramedics had put on me.

I woke up in the middle of the night to see Gov. Bush’s “victory” celebration. The next morning, I woke up early to find that Bush’s victory was not valid — and that I would not be allowed to eat or drink anything until after my surgery. It was one of the longest days of my life.

Around 6:30 p.m. I was prepared for the nurses to come in and get me to take me “under the knife.” They finally arrived around 7:15 p.m. or so to take me to the operating room.

The surgeon then explained the entire procedure to my parents and me, and that it wouldn’t take long. The anesthesiologist gave me an IV that put me to sleep. The next thing I knew, I was in the recovery room.

I was rolled in my bed back to my room, where I was given morphine that made all the pain go away. Eventually, it put me to sleep. I awoke to my first meal in more than 24 hours.

After breakfast, the physical therapists came in to put me on crutches. My leg had not been put in a cast in case of swelling. Instead, I got a splint, which made my leg feel very, very heavy.

I “walked” around for about five minutes before the feeling was unbearable and I went back to lie down. When visiting hours ended, my surgeon told me I could pack up and go home that night.
After my complimentary wheelchair ride out of the hospital, I finally made it to the car, which took me to the only destination I cared about: home. When I got home, I laid down on the couch while my parents moved my bed into the living room so I wouldn’t be far from the kitchen or bathroom.

I was out of school for about two weeks until I got my cast. I headed back the Monday after Thanksgiving break. I had a cast change in December and the X-rays showed that my bones were healing properly.

I got my cast off in January and walked around on crutches for about two more weeks before I was able to walk around on my own. At the end of March, I had been walking without a limp for about a month.

I still have the plate in my leg, along with a scar, and I’m supposed to head back to the doctor in about 18 months. I’ll be evaluated and able to schedule a date if I want my plate taken out (I can get it out sooner if it agitates me).

After all this, I am thankful for my life, which could have ended if the soccer goal had hit me somewhere vital. And I’m thankful for all the people who stuck by me through this entire accident. Though I hate to admit it, it was the experience of a lifetime (but I don’t advise breaking a leg).