Athletes and injuries
After months, even years of hard work, one moment can change everything for student-athletes. After an injury, players are stuck on the sidelines watching the very thing that has consumed their lives since childhood. Instead, they face months of rehabilitation to re-learn something they have known their whole lives: how to move their bodies.
Over the past year, University of Indianapolis Assistant Athletic Trainer Brian Gerlach has worked with two Greyhound athletes, both from different sports and with different injuries, whose serious injuries have sidelined them from their sport.
Megan Gardner, a junior guard for the basketball team, played in all 34 games her freshman year and the first six of the 2009-2010 season, until she was injured in a game on Dec. 3, 2009.
“My injury was instant,” Gardner said. “I was going up for a rebound and came down on my knee wrong and tore my ACL, MCL and meniscus.”
This is not uncommon in female athletes. In fact, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation, not only is the ACL one of the most commonly injured ligaments of the knee, but women suffer this injury more frequently than men.
According to Gardner, she was out for the rest of the season and is just now coming back over a year later.
Gerlach explained how he worked with Gardner every step of the way during her rehabilitation.
“I worked with her right after her surgery with range of motion and swelling all the way through running and cutting again,” Gerlach said. “She spent an hour a day in the training room, and we would spend the whole practice doing rehab on the sidelines.”
According to Gardner, sitting out from the sport she loves was very difficult. She explained how her teammates did a great job of motivating her and keeping her involved.
“I had to come to the training room earlier than everyone else, but I knew I had to do my rehab to get better,” Gardner said. “Since I was out for so long, I don’t feel 100 percent yet. But hopefully, by the start of next season, I will be.”
Gardner said that she has been playing basketball since the third grade, and this is her first serious injury.
“So, in a sense, I have been lucky,” Gardner said.
Zachary Pigg, a sophomore midfielder for the men’s soccer team, saw playing time in seven matches before he was injured on Oct. 3, 2010, in a match against the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
“The keeper came out and slide tackled me directly on the lateral side of my right leg,” Pigg said. “It snapped my fibula and pushed my tibia outside my leg.”
Gerlach explained how this was a very traumatic injury. He said the school’s emergency action plan was activated, and Pigg was taken to the hospital that night for emergency surgery. He had plates put in his leg and was immobilized for six weeks.
“I have been unable to practice or play since [the injury] and am just now starting sport-specific progressions,” Pigg said. “It has been very hard to watch from the sidelines, especially as time goes on without playing.”
Gerlach described Pigg’s long road to recovery, which started with pool rehabilitation twice a week. He said Pigg was running and cutting in the pool before he could walk in a boot because only 10 to 15 percent of his body weight was on his legs in the water.
Gerlach explained that after the pool rehabilitation, the next step was to regain range of motion and reduce swelling in the leg.
“We had to teach him how to walk again,” Gerlach said. “He literally would walk up and down the hallway, and we would critique him.”
Pigg described how he still has a lot of work to do before he can play again.
“They [the doctors] are not completely sure when I will be able to get back to full strength,” Pigg said. “They said it depends on me as an individual diligently doing my rehab and exercises.”
Pigg explained that he is currently hoping to get cleared to do more this spring, as he continues to rehabilitate from his injury.
