1) One’s personal experience are often not translatable because when one doesn’t know all the details that matter, one doesn’t realize that your own injury may be far different from one someone else suffered, even if it SOUNDS the same the details matter bigtime.

2) When we hear of a sports injury it is often very sketchily reported. Details are missing and on some occasions, we simply do not know the type of injury at all, like in this case. It was initially reported he had an open fracture with serious blood loss and immediate open reduction surgery; now Joba is saying he had no fracture at all, but a closed subtalar dislocation. To put it mildly this is a far different injury than the tib-fib fracture I believe you are describing in yourself (BTW do you mean compound as in open, or do you mean comminuted, or both?)

By the way, my sympathies to you–best of luck on continued recovery; as I had said above, tib-fib fractures tend to have some trouble healing, and I recall a colleague in his 20′s with this type of fracture who was in external fixation for practically a year and the recovery was very protracted.

A lesson for us all:

He is now totally denying the initial reports I heard RE: compound (open) fracture, and in fact fracture of any sort– He is now saying he had merely a subtalar dislocation.

This is totally different–really more of a hindfoot than an ankle injury and involves rupture of different ligaments connecting the talus and calcaneus. Sounds like this one did not require open reduction (surgery), and without associated fracture, putting it in a better category.

http://www.wheelessonline.com/ortho/sub_talar_dislocation
BTW, Wheeless is an excellent source for orthopedic injury issues.

I think the chances of career-threatening injury have gone way down.

I just realized after posting that we haven’t been told exactly which bone(s) were broken. Obviously this will affect the prognosis:

A simple noncomminuted distal FIBULAR fracture is a whole lot better than a comminuted fracture of the TIBIA and fibula, particularly with intra-articular involvement, which tend not to heal as well, especially with obvious arterial damage…

And sorry for the typo–the thirr major artery is the ANTERIOR tibial (not “interior”).

COMPOUND FRACTURE: Older term for a fracture in which one of the fragments penetrates the skin (thus introducing risk of infection). The newer term is “Open fracture”. I think they discontinued “Compound” because it confused people into thinking it had to do with the complexity of the fracture, which it doesn’t. Closed fractures don’t penetrate the skin.

COMMINUTED fracture: This refers to a fracture in which the bone is in several pieces; I think it is this that people used to confuse “compound” with.

DISLOCATION: This refers to loss of integrity of a JOINT. One can have dislocation without a fracture, and fracture without a joint dislocation. Though in the case of an ankle dislocation, it rarely occurs without a fracture, because the joint ligaments and interosseous membrane of the lower leg are very strong, and are very rarely disrupted without sufficient force to break at least one involved bone.

DISPLACEMENT: This refers to distance between the fracture fragments and doesn’t really have anything to do with joint dislocation. Obviously there was significant displacement of Joba’s fracture, because one of the fragments went through the skin (Open, or Compound).
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Blood loss: We are told he had “significant blood loss” and “profuse bleeding”, which strongly suggests one of the fracture fragments severed one of the three major arteries in the area–the peroneal artery, the posterior tibial artery, or less likely, the interior tibial artery.

Prognosis: As I ‘m not an orthopedist, I don’t know this, but there will be (A) Infection risk, which as you sports fans know, became a big issue with Barry Bonds’ knee, (B) Definitely some ligament damage. I speculate that if he doesn’t become infected, he will have a decent chance at a real recovery, because I’m not that cognizant of ankle injuries ending pitchers’ careers (please correct me on this any of you who can point out examples, or are orthopedic surgeons). Something like the kind of stuff Johan Santana went through will be much more serious as it’s his pitching shoulder, and he seems to be doing well. Elbow injuries of the sort Joba also has, of course, have a history of doing very well after surgery.

p.s. Glad he did this playing with his kid, as the media were ready to rip him to shreds for “lifestyle issues”. Totally unfair.

Sideline…so sorry for Joba. That completely blows. It happened and the past can’t be changed. I wish for his family a speedy recovery, as well as for Joba. That emotional roller-coaster has got to be a tough ride.

Here is the link:http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AkEXFcWLfUy5DlXGlopU1jgRvLYF?slug=ap-yankees-chamberlain

I’ve copied and pasted below one very interesting piece in the article and I quote:
“Chamberlain had surgery Thursday night. The 6-foot-2, 240-pound righty was working his way back from elbow ligament replacement surgery and was expected to return in June….”
the article went on to say “Chamberlain also told Cashman he could be back on a mound by July. Cashman did not have the results Saturday morning on Chamberlain’s MRI exam and CT scan, which were done on Friday.”

“That’s what he told me the doctors are telling him,” Cashman said. “We’ll see. I don’t know. I’m just passing on what he said, and hopefully that’s all accurate. That’s the optimistic side. I don’t think anybody can tell anybody directly right now anything on that.”
“In January, Chamberlain agreed to a one-year contract for $1,675,000, up from $1.4 million last year. The deal was not guaranteed.”

For the past couple of weeks, HBT unfortunately has been little more than a HB Injury Report.

Speedy recovery to ya, joba!

Jumping on a trampoline is about as innocuous an activity as you can engage in.

It’s not like he was skydiving or off-roading. He could have screwed his ankle up JOGGING, for god’s sake.

This is just a freak accident, and I feel bad for him. Never thought I’d say that as a Sox fan, but that just sucks, no two ways about it.

’0pizza, you suck more than anything or anyone has ever sucked. Don’t for one second think that anyone who reads this board even semi-regularly believes you are anything other than a vulgar idiot. El Bravo’s got a better sense of humour on his worst day than you have on your best (and that includes even if your best day involves you volunteering to being stomped by circus clowns: which would be hilarious and oh so appropriate).