Worst Injury

[LJP]

We have all obviously witnessed some terrible injuries over the years, but Chicago Bears TE Zach Miller's knee injury yesterday is probably the worst I have ever seen.

Essentially a non-contact injury, his left foot landed somewhat awkwardly and then stuck to the turf. Momentum appears to have done the rest as his body weight continued forward and his left knee went through an angle that is hard to describe.

Not going to share the footage of the injury, you can look it up if you wish, but it is flat out nasty.

Initially reported as a dislocated knee, the latest reports state he underwent emergency vascular surgery yesterday in an attempt to save his left leg.

Waiting on further news and obviously hoping all is OK. At 33 that is probably a career ending injury.

Miller missed the best part of 4 years with injuries and is one of the toughest players to step on the field.

#86

Edit: the Bears just issued a statement saying that Miller underwent successful surgery for a torn popliteal artery (the major one through the middle of the knee). Additional tests pending...

[BD Sullivan]

Either Darryl Stingley's 1978 broken neck or Joe Theismann's 1985 broken leg is probably the first one that would come to mind with most people However, there are some others:

1960: The Titans' Howard Glenn died after suffering a broken neck.

1963: The Chiefs' Stone Johnson died from complications of a broken neck suffered in an exhibition game.

1963: Roger Kochman, RB for the Bills had two Oiler linemen land on his leg, which ended up severing ligaments and arteries.

Also: see Mike Utley, Dennis Byrd, Kevin Everett, Ed McCaffrey, Tim Krumrie, Napoleon McCallum, Jeff Fuller.

[LJP]

I suppose it is the visual ones that people tend to remember the most.

A lot of the time you wonder how people manage to even get up from some of the collisions. Unfortunately, some don't.

[Gary Najman]

Either Darryl Stingley's 1978 broken neck or Joe Theismann's 1985 broken leg is probably the first one that would come to mind with most people However, there are some others:

1960: The Titans' Howard Glenn died after suffering a broken neck.

1963: The Chiefs' Stone Johnson died from complications of a broken neck suffered in an exhibition game.

1963: Roger Kochman, RB for the Bills had two Oiler linemen land on his leg, which ended up severing ligaments and arteries.

Also: see Mike Utley, Dennis Byrd, Kevin Everett, Ed McCaffrey, Tim Krumrie, Napoleon McCallum, Jeff Fuller.

Other player injury I think it has to be mentioned it's Reggie Brown, linebacker for the Lions in the final game of the 1997 regular season. Brown suffered a spinal cord injury tackling Jets running back Adrian Murrell. I was watching the game live on TV and I vividly remember both benches into the field and Jets DB Chris Hayes crying. He laid 17 minutes motionless in the field, but emergency surgery helped him to walk again.

[JuggernautJ]

The worst injuries I've seen "Live" (on TV) were Krumrie and Theismann.
For years (maybe a decade) I kept a picture from the newspaper of Theismann's injury "as it happened" taped to my front door frame to remind me to be (extra/very) careful when I went out to play football.

The worst injury I ever saw on the sandlot was an eye injury.
I had the perfect vantage point to see a defender swipe at the ball, miss and plunge his finger into the ball carrier's eye socket up to the first knuckle. I almost threw up as the ball carrier screamed and rolled around on the field for about ten minutes. I thought my friend had lost his eye.
Amazingly, the player who suffered that injury was out only a week or two.

In twenty years of playing sandlot we only had to call for an ambulance once.
That was for a "separated lung." Also know as "why 40 year olds shouldn't play against 25 year old ex-cons."
Oddly enough, it was shortly after that incident that many of us "retired."

[Rupert Patrick]

Worst sports injury I ever saw was in the seventh grade in gym class. We were playing soccer and one kid was wearing eyeglasses and collided with another kid and I won't get into details but the glasses broke and he lost an eye. I was close by and saw it and so shocked and horrified by what I saw I remember walking home in my gym clothes at 9AM because I didn't know what else to do. My mom asked what was wrong and it took me about a half hour to explain what happened and she called the school and found out what happened and took me back a couple hours later once I recovered. I still think about it at least once a week. Hey, happy Halloween everybody!

[falconfan58]

I seem to remember Ken Norton jr grabbing a Raiders RB,falling foward,the RBs cleat hung in the ground and his leg snapped.Also,there was a rookie playing volleyball at the Pro Bowl,he went up for the ball,I don't what happened ,but when he landed I believe his leg or knee went out.Also,there was the ACL injury to first round pick Dean Cain's knee which ended his football career.They were all bad to see.I never want to see any one get carried off on a cart or needing help off the field.

[bachslunch]

Also,there was a rookie playing volleyball at the Pro Bowl,he went up for the ball,I don't what happened ,but when he landed I believe his leg or knee went out.

That was Robert Edwards. As a Patriots rookie RB, he had gained 1115 rushing yards in 1998, good for 15th in the league. He sustained a serious knee injury in a rookie flag football game during Pro Bowl week. According to Wikipedia, he narrowly escaped needing a leg amputation. He tried a comeback with the Miami Dolphins in 2002, but played very little and was released. Apparently, he had two excellent seasons in the CFL with the Montreal Alouettes in 2005 and 2006 before tailing off in 2007, which was split between the Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Ed ... _football)

[Citizen]

I didn't see Miller's injury, but it sounds similar to what happened to what happened to Teddy Bridgewater. After reading that Bridgewater's Vikings teammates were screaming and retching at the sight of his injury, I don't care to watch anything similar.

E.J. Henderson's broken leg in 2009 was nasty to witness. As he flew through the air after breaking his femur on Jamarca Sanford's helmet, all that was holding Henderson's lower leg to his body was skin.

During a pre-season game in 1972, Lynn Dickey was tackled from behind by an opposing linebacker, causing both men's full weight to come down on Dickey's right knee as he landed on the Astrodome turf. The force caused Dickey's right thigh bone to snap loose from his hip and get driven up into his rib cage. Between that and his Theismann-like broken leg in 1977, it's a small miracle that Dickey lasted in the NFL as long as he did.

[Reaser]

In twenty years of playing sandlot we only had to call for an ambulance once.

In 4th grade (our youth football team back then 4th, 5th and 6th were all on the same team) my first year with the pads on and in our first full-contact practice of the season (and ever, for me) I was in line for a one-on-one tackling drill and the kid (6th grade) behind me who I didn't know kept telling me about how he should be the starting RB and such. Then I was next in line, on defense, to be up against our starting RB (5th grader) and the kid behind me moves in front of me says something along the lines of that he doesn't like that kid and he's going injure him - he had hyped himself up non-stop in line so I didn't think anything of it - and lo and behold when they're up next he goes and dives at the RB's leg and it snapped and twisted backwards. Kid was screaming and crying and I was standing there (next in line) looking at his leg and from the knee down it was facing the wrong way. Literally my first tackling drill in football that's what happened. What's funny is that after a really long delay and the ambulance and everything, we continued practice and continued on to "Oklahoma Drill", which was awesome.

The kid that injured him was a starting LB but still didn't get moved up to starting RB and ended up quitting before our jamboree because of that. The kid that was injured had not only a broken leg but all the tears and dislocations in his knee. I didn't know who he was at the time (we're friends now) but he was out for a long time, couldn't play for three years and didn't start playing football again until 8th grade (so missed 5th, 6th and 7th) which is when I met him in middle school when I was in 7th grade and we were the respective MVP's for our school (me 7th grade MVP, him 8th) and then basketball started and he was considered best in his grade and I was best in mine, we were on our grades middle school teams but also played in the city league and were on different teams - had some good battles until I fouled him hard and he landed and broke his wrist. In football in High School he was our best player his Junior year (my Soph.) and was league MVP but his senior year he had a collection of injuries so was in and out of the lineup.

We talked about the youth football injury a year or so ago and it was kind of crazy that he played after that at all, let alone that he was the best or one of the best in 3 sports (football, basketball and baseball) from 8th grade through high school. Including being by far the fastest player on any of those teams or opponents teams. He described his injury as "broken leg, dislocated knee, torn everything" which is about how I recalled it looking, ha.