HOSPITAL FOR SPECIAL SURGERY, NYC – Today marks twenty-six years since one of sports most gruesome and graphic injuries occurred when the skate blade of St. Louis Blues forward Steve Tuttle sliced the jugular vein of home team Buffalo Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk. While the events gave new meaning to the sports cliché “going for the throat” it also caused massive blood loss as only a quick thinking miracle kept this guy alive. The incident made spectators and teammates physically ill but isn’t the only injury to make us lose our lunch. Here’s a look at some of the Worst Sports Injuries Ever:
For old farts like me, the benchmark for ugly images starts with Lawrence Taylor making a right angle of Joe Theismann’s lower leg. Monday Night Football television cameras caught the Washington QB’s then-girlfriend Kathie Lee Crosby rushing down from the stands wearing the pelt of some dead animal to probably catch a ride in the ambulance. The injury made one and all scream, “That’s Incredible!”
The catcher position in baseball is often referred to as “the tools of ignorance” and the first order of business for these players is to protect the man’s “tool” by wearing a protective cup. On a summer day in 2008 the Diamondbacks catcher, Chris Snyder, proved ignorant by foregoing the support and subsequently, having nothing to do with fornicating, “busted a nut” – his left one to be exact. To amazement, he played an inning or two after the ball on ball violence. He wound up on the 15-day disabled list and needed surgery. How is a testicle repaired by doctors I ask. I mean you can’t uncrack an egg, right?
March Madness is here and reminds us of the 2013 Elite Eight matchup between Duke and Louisville, when Kevin Ware of the Cardinals contested a Blue Devil shot and landed awkwardly enough to incur a compound fracture of his leg. Teammates, opponents, and coaches were horrified at the site of bone protruding the skin in the right leg. Part of the Georgia State team that beat Baylor in the opening round bracket buster, it’s no secret he hasn’t been told to “break a leg” during any of his tournament performances.
John Birch Society member Dave Dravecky literally “gave his left arm” to be a MLB pitcher for the Padres and Giants over a short-lived eight-year career. In 1988 a cancerous tumor was found in his pitching arm and had complicated surgery to remove the cancer cells with the medical advice not to pitch again until 1990. What seemed like a triumphant return, Dravecky, in his second start in late summer 1989, snapped his arm and collapsed in a heap on the pitcher’s mound. Two years and two surgeries later, Dravecky had to have the arm amputated.
I was at the 2003 NCAA Football Championship game when a hush came across the entire stadium as Miami Hurricanes RB Willis McGahee blew his knee up entirely in the fourth quarter against the Ohio State Buckeyes. Against the odds, McGahee had a pretty decent ten-year run in the NFL.
Throw us a comment with some of the more grotesque events you remember… and remember to come back tomorrow for West Coast Craig.
