Nastiest Injury you've witnessed....
 

After catching the highlights of the Clippers game and seeing the nausea-inducing replay of Shawn Livingston dislocating his kneecap, it got me to thinking---What's the worst injury you've seen on-court? We had a JV game out this way a couple months ago where two kids cracked heads diving after a loose ball. Both were knocked unconscious and had to be taken to the hospital. That sound was just nasty......

Me dislocating my kneecap in January, of course. To be fair, my kneecap didn't have to be put back into place, though, so my injury paled to his.

I had a player go up for a shot, lost his balance when it was blocked and landed first on his hand, full force, breaking his wrist.

I did a mens league game where a player drove as a post guy stuck out his hand and got him in the face. The guy literally had a hand print on his face, broken nose, eye swollen shut, and lots and lots of blood.

I saw a dislocated ankle. Kid went up on his own and came down wrong without being fouled. His leg was one way, his foot going another. We delayed the game for about 40 minutes. It did not look good.

Peace

Couple years ago, during a timeout, I was standing down on the block. The cheerleaders were behind me doing their routine, one where some of the firls on the floor raise another girl up standing on their hands. And yes, a shriek followed by a thud. Didn't knock her out. Just a little woozy.

And a couple weeks ago, similar thing happened between quarters, although this time it was 2 of these same formations facing back to back. The girl on top of pyramid #1 came down wrong, and the spot girl behind her got knocked over into the legs of one of the girls in the pyramid behind her. Amazingly, they all walked away from that one.

A dislocated elbow: a player jumped to rebound, lost his balance and fell just on his elbow. Terrible to see. I said to just cover him and call an ambulance.

It was before a doctor was required at every major game in Italy; some leagues now require also an ambulance with a defibrillator.

Another strange injury was to my partner in a wheelchair basketball game: his foot went under a wheel. :eek: He couldn't finish the game, but fortunately he had no big damage. I learnt how painful it can be: don't try.

Ciao

I saw this too. It is not a pretty sight to see the bottom of the foot facing to the right instead of down at the floor.
Ironically, they just showed the Livingston highlight and I didn't watch.

On a side note, Tracy McGrady is one of the softest players I have ever seen in the NBA.

Mine
 

The worst injury I have seen happened in a summer camp game. A player was trying to save a ball in the corner and his momentum took him into a post about 8ft off the court. He hit his head on the corner of the post and cut one his arteries in his head. blood was everywhere. Luckily there was a paramedic nearby and he was able to control the bleeding until the ambulance got there.

Guard driving for an uncontested dunk. He decides to finish with a flourish, but the tension on the rim pulls his hand up as his body descends. I saw his arm stretch weirdly at the elbow -- dislocation. When he hit the ground, his ulna was clearly beside the humerus.

I still shiver when I recall it.

I had a Grade 8 Boys game where a kid was running in on a 2 on 1, goes for the layup and gets blocked, clean as a whistle. The force of the block knocks the kid off balance and he fell awkwardly on his hand and arm, SNAP. His arm was bent at 90 degrees right in the middle of his forearm. It was the classic fracture I was taught in Paramedic classes. He had no pain at all, it just looked UGLY. Luckily it was not a compound fracture so no Blood to clean. Delayed the game long enough for someone to get me a splint and by the time I immobed his arm an ambulance was there and took the kid to the hospital to set the break. Talked to the Coaches about continuing the game, the teammates were more disturbed then the young man who was injured. 35 minutes later off we went to finish the game. The kids team lost by 2 points in OT.

Back when I was playing in a mens league, a teammate goes up for a layup and was pushed from behind. He landed awkwardly on one leg, and "pop" goes his Achilles tendon. His calf rolled up like a window shade behind his knee, leaving him screaming in pain on the floor.
He was one of the best players I've ever seen, but he never played again.

This one is football but nothing I've seen has ever topped it. Not even Joe Theisman's leg looked as bad as this, In practice an Iowa State running back in about 1975 or so was running down field and slightly left and then cut back off his left foot and turned back towards the right. When he planted his right foot it happened to be against the grain of the astro-turf and got caught up and it got stuck in the turf. His momentum then took his upper body over the top of his stuck foot and his upper body then sort of rolled over the top of his own leg. His knee then hyper extended a complete 90 degrees the opposite direction that it should be before the foot became unstuck. In other words if he had been sitting normally in a chair his foot and toes would be staring back at him in the face. The doctors thought for awhile to just go ahead and amputate but they didn't.

The trainer had the film and also made four still pictures from the negatives which is how you can see the full 90 degrees. It was brutal.

The worst I've witnessed was a girl dislocating her kneecap.

I was in college and we had a 7 footer on our team who wasn't very coordinated.

He went up for a dunk, dunked the ball but got his front two teeth tangled in the net (You couldn't make this one up). You can imagine what happened on the way down.....Crack....two teeth go flying and blood all over.

Recovered the teeth but were broken at the root so they had to be removed and new, artificial teeth put back in......

back in my playing days
 

This happened when I was still in high school, probably during a JV game.

A kid from the other team went running after a loose ball out of bounds. He slapped the ball back into play and his momentum carried him toward one of the exit doors. He put his hands out to protect himself, but his right arm went straight throught the little plate glass window in the door. The remaining upper half of the sheet of glass slid down and cut through his bicep right down to the bone. I was a clean cut of all the muscle and ligament tissue. He pulled his arm out and blood was squirting everywhere. Combine that with everyone in the gym freaking out, it was a pretty intense experience. We stopped the game for almost an hour while we waited for clean-up and medical services. The kid didn't play again for roughly 2 years while he rehabed.