Imagine that your son has already secured a spot on a collegiate gymnastics team and is ready to finish his high school career, with nationals being his end goal. He is at the first gymnastics competition of his senior season and his energy and confidence are high, just like the rest of his team. The stands are filled with family and friends, ready to get this season started, and you are on the sidelines as your son starts his first event. He goes up on the vault, something he has done many times before, and lands. But something is wrong. On his first event of the first competition, in his last season, your son gets injured. What now?
Eric’s first event of the season was vault. When warming up, Eric’s confidence showed with perfect runs on vault. There were no nerves, only excitement. However, injuries happen fast, especially in sports. One slip up can cause a life changing event that could mean being out for the season, the year, or longer. During this vault, Eric’s hand, hit the vault table wrong, causing his landing to be off. At the other end of the vault, Mandy stood watching her son.
“I actually thought that he was laughing after he fell on his landing,” Mandy said, “It wasn’t until I saw his dad duck under the barriers, that I just started running.”
Eric had snapped both bones in his leg after landing wrong on vault. Mandy explained that although this was a serious injury, the weirdest thing was that everyone was calm, and it was dead silent. Once Eric was injured, the meet was at a standstill; everything stopped and shut down. Everyone worked together to make sure Eric was taken care of.
“We got in to OSMS immediately,” Mandy said. “The injury happened over a weekend, and I am pretty sure we got in that following Monday.”
After an injury, the choices for treatment and surgery matter the most. Where and how the athlete is treated makes a huge impact on recovery time and how long, or short, it takes for them to get back to doing what they love. Mandy knew that the steps she took to get her son treated were the most vital part of the process to getting her son back in the competition, so she chose to take Eric to OSMS.
Before this injury, Eric had been to OSMS before for two other injuries: a broken wrist and a broken thumb. After their experiences with OSMS, they knew that his leg injury had to be done by the OSMS doctors.
“They did such a good job the first two times that after this injury we said, ‘find us somebody at OSMS for his leg’.”
At OSMS you do not have to wait long after an injury to see a doctor. Whether it be through the walk-in injury clinic or an appointment, you will see a doctor fast. This is exactly what happened with Mandy.
From there, Mandy only had to worry about Eric and his recovery, OSMS took care of the rest. The whole injury was broken down into smaller steps and goals, where Mandy helped Eric throughout the process.
“I love the way they (OSMS) take care of us. We know exactly what we are getting into. We know the timing and they do everything for us, which is really reassuring.”
It took a total of 6 weeks for Eric to recover after he had surgery with OSMS. With a fast recovery time, Eric was able to reach his goal of ending his high school career by competing in nationals. He competed in two events and placed 8th in his age group out of 188 on the parallel bars.
When Mandy was asked what advice she would give to other parents that are going through their child being injured, she stated, “If your child gets injured, break down the whole process into palatable goals and get through it step by step. This way, you can see the progress you have made; this is where you started, versus this is where you are now.”
Injuries happen and they happen fast. To schedule an appointment with one of the OSMS doctors, visit: Request an Appointment at OSMS (osmsgb.com). To learn more about the OSMS walk-in Acute Injury Clinic, visit: Visit the Acute Injury Clinic at OSMS – Green Bay, WI (osmsgb.com).
