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by Joshua Cox
Rushing to the ball, she kicks with all her strength, and misses the ball entirely. Although it’s always embarrassing to fail an attempt at kicking the ball, some- thing much, much worse just happened to a major ligament in her leg. Her ACL had torn almost completely in half.
“We were playing Manti at home,” said Kallie Spencer, NS girls soccer team captain. “I missed the ball, my knee hyperextended, I heard a pop, and I kin- da just sat down. And it hurt.”
That injury put Spencer out for the rest of her season, and the unfortunate injury will keep her out of her track season as well.
Injuries aren’t uncommon, especially in this high school sports environment. People play hard, get rough, and they get hurt. In a recent NS times study, nearly 34 percent of kids reported that they have had an injury, with 74 percent being involved in at least one sport. But serious injuries like these generally are uncommon.
“I’d say there are over a dozen [kids] whose inju- ries are significant enough to either take them out of practice, or were season-ending injuries,” said Jamie Withers, physical therapist at NS.
Even though these more significant, season-ending injuries are uncommon, two students suffered the same rare injury this fall alone.
“[At volleyball], I was cheering, like I usually do,” said Kady Cook, junior on the volleyball team, “and I jumped, and it popped. It just popped right in, and then I fell to the floor.”
What isn’t the same about Spencer and Cook’s two injuries is the fact that Cook was under the impression, told by a physical therapist, that she was fine and would be there for the next practice.
“I went to Jamie, and she told me that it was feeling a little weird,” said Cook, “so I finally went and got an MRI, and they just came back and said that my ACL was completely ruptured.”
They both had to have major surgery on their leg, where the surgeons took a graft from somewhere else on their leg, either their hamstring or quadriceps. Interestingly enough, they both chose to implant different ones. Cook chose the quadricep graft, while Spencer chose the hamstring graft.
“They tear the old ACL out, and then they used a hamstring tendon graft to make a new ACL,” said Spencer, “so then after clearing the knee out and drilling holes in the bone, they stuck the new ACL in, they put a screw in one side, anchored it on the other side, then they stitched me up and made sure my knee worked.”
Surgery of any kind is not very fun. And most people know that there is physical pain in recovery, but there is less thought about the side of recuperation. Many people fail to see the mental toll it has on a person to sustain a serious injury.
“Sometimes injury has a significant impact on kids. I think all around it’s kind of a devastating thing, and they kind of go through the whole process of being mad and being down and out,” said Withers. “So I think it is definitely a big loss for them.”
But some kids like Cook and Spencer know how to learn from injury, and it’s even easier when they have the much-needed aid from team members, friends, and family.
“I’ve had so much support, especially from tons of my friends and family, even like my other friends from other schools have come to see me. It’s been really nice, I’ve felt very loved during this,” said Cook.
Both girls were also visited by some of their team members in the hospital.
“We had a good team over there, and they were very nice, and they were pretty helpful. It’s just kind of humbling almost just how easily things change, and just having to adapt so quickly,” said Spencer.
They have indeed adjusted. And Spencer is planning on adjusting her soccer game, too.
“I am never going to miss the ball again,” said Spencer.
