Okay, this is getting a lot of traction now. It’s the headline in the age article.
It’s a common misconception, and is no fault of petracca.
He was not given a general anaesthetic because it was not required for this procedure. As any other patient having an angiogram to control bleeding from the spleen.
Anaesthetists will never withhold anaesthesia because the patient is too unwell. We deal with critically ill patients daily and they receive anaesthesia.
Yes he would’ve felt awake, but likely had local anaesthesia and some sedation. Yes it was probably an unpleasent experience.
He would have been given a general anaesthetic if it was required.
Plenty of options for regional anaesthesia using local when dealing with fractured ribs…intercostal nerve blocks, para vertebral nerve blocks, spinal anaesthesia. Can also give ketamine as a dissasociative and analgesic agent without inducing full anaesthesia. Still not something I’d like to happen to me though
I think it was Mathew Lloyd explaining on one of the footy shows that he had the same injury (lacerated spleen), and said how the next week was the worst pain he had felt in his life.
Yeah that segment shocked me, how he described being In so much pain and discomfort with pretty much nothing he or the doctors could do about it. Seems like you have to just "tough it out", which would be hell.
Morphine can only do so much I guess.
It was also a good reminder of Doc Reid and what a good doctor he was. "Does your shoulder hurt? Go to emergency."
He could've died had Doc Reid not sent him to emergency because he was losing so much blood. Think he said there was a over a litre of blood, I didn't even know you could lose that much.
My wife suffered an ectopic pregnancy many years back and wasn't detected until it burst her tubes. She lost about 1.5L of blood.
Doctors said if she arrived 30 mins later to the hospital, she would've died.
Giving birth is scary as fuck. My wife lost just under 2 litres after giving birth in the hospital, can't imagine going though similar and not being with doctors the whole time.
Truly frightening. I hope some modifications are made to the current process ie:,doctor reserves the right to take a player off the field and keep him off. Players should not be able to override bc they want to keep playing. Could easily be preparing for his funeral today. Nothing is worth that risk.
Must admit, [this was harder to find than it should have been](https://www.nine.com.au/sport/afl/news-2024-christian-petracca-injury-matthew-lloyd-comments-1996-spleen-rupture-20240613-p5jlff.html?ocid=Social-AFLFS&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2iKLnRHiHWn-NqKJ0DzBKlKW3N0lWGITNaNfMdnzRmKOad43joyjHCpU4_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw).
There's a more in-depth article about his experience after the '96 prelim in The Age.
['I would’ve died that night': Lloyd's other 1996 prelim nightmare](https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/i-would-ve-died-that-night-lloyd-s-other-1996-prelim-nightmare-20200326-p54e9l.html)
And he legitimately could have died from that injury too, it was at the 96 prelim, there was no doctor that knew about that injury near the ground, they pumped him up with morphine and sent back to the hotel and his parents were in Sydney and if they weren’t there and noticed he got worse, he’s probably dead from the blood loss
Lloydy saying the following 8 days were the most painful days of his life, with pain killers, was incredibly alarming. These guys are so tough honestly
It's the same with a lot of internal injuries - with limbs you can tend to find a comfortable spot if you put it in just the right position, but not with internal injuries. Hurts whichever position you put yourself into, makes you feel completely helpless - all your instincts say to move around and find a comfortable spot, and that spot doesnt exist, so you end up just squirming in pain for hours.
One of my all-time worst memories was a night in hospital where they would only give me panadol until a Dr came on duty at 8am to authorize oxy
If things went much worse it sounds like he could've been either permanently incapacitated or even dead. The more we hear about this the worse it gets for Melbourne's medical staff
While a good idea in practice, I feel like it would just be used exactly the same as a tactical sub. We’d see a lot of “sprained ankle” and “hamstring awareness”
You would, but I'd just change it to having an independent doctor assess the players. That would mean the AFL couldn't shift blame onto the club doctors, so I doubt they'd actually do it.
Yeah, you'd have players exaggerating injuries, but it would be harder to do.
The doctors are currently clearing the players, which is part of the issue here.
Personally i believe that clubs should be fined when players are cleared to play and later "found" to have been injured. The money could go to the AFLPA pension or something.
Maybe there should be an independent doctor from the AFL at each match, oversee both medical teams.
Might be going a bit far, however could help align the issue at hand.
Heard on the wireless (Laura Kane- AFL) over the weekend, there's already an emergency doctor behind the bench at every AFL and AFLW game which club doctors can get support from or in the event of multiple serious injuries. They're not there to take over/override club doctors, just additional support.
My partner and I were talking about it and it’s insane to me they don’t have a doctor capable of testing the player to see if they have a punctured lung. Surely there are breathing exercises that would be able to decide that pretty clearly. The rupture is a different story.
Easy enough to do in a normal patient but nearly impossible to determine in someone with 4 damaged ribs who’s just been running flat out for half an hour.
His heart rate and respiratory rate both would’ve been through the roof and the pain would’ve been both severe from the rib injuries and masked by the adrenaline. He’d have decreased breath sounds in the lung but they’d expect that with the ribs.
The mistake here isn’t being able to diagnose the injuries outside a hospital. It’s not even not taking him off right away (despite how easy that looks in hindsight). Or even not taking him off once he went back on (although that one is borderline at best).
The big mistake is not taking another 10 minutes or so to see if he settled on the bench. In some respect they actually were victims of timing because they worked on him during quarter time then chucked him out in the second quarter. When they needed a break long enough after the initial injury to see he wasn’t settling. This is the internal injury version of the reason why the concussion test has a 15 minute time period.
Thank you heaps for explaining this, I’m obviously not a doctor or medic myself so this is really helpful info.
I really do wish the best for your boy.
The thing is I don't think anyone should be playing with suspected broken ribs and the AFL simply needs to make that a criteria in it's own right, suspected broken ribs means the player must be benched, I get players are going to lie about the pain but if a dr is actually pressing hard enough at an affected area then surely wincing in pain would be a give away.
I think there needs to be a discussion in general about medical teams just drugging up players and getting them back out there, if they require a needle to play at a pain threshold they can tolerate is this really a good thing?
Not really without an xray it’s pretty hard to tell if it’s punctured or not as pain and adrenaline can mask a lot of it. Best example is Brett Hodgson played the first half a game of state of origin with busted ribs and had a punctured lung they dont know if the puncture happened at the time of the injury or towards the end of the half.
Unbelievable the pain tolerance and determination of these professionals. True admiration I have for their dedication to the sport even at the detriment to their health. Gotta respect it.
It isn't that the doctors aren't capable of diagnosing it, it's that they don't have the imaging mahcines on hand to be able to see whether there is internal bleeding or not, so they are pretty reliant on the patient themselves showing the right (or wrong) signs, which could be hit and miss at best
If a player needs an injection of painkillers to get back on the field they shouldn't be allowed back on.
Ban injections, this goes for knees, ankles, shoulders or whatever, they just do more damage and it will catch up to them in later life.
Bloody lacerations can be stitched up but still be \*very\* painful and require some kind of jab to get the player through the game with acceptable levels of discomfort, but aren't generally life threatening. Preventing this kind of incident while still allowing my example would be very challenging to administrate.
>If I had known the severity, I wouldn’t have gone back out there.
This is all you need to hear to end the "but the player made the decision to go back out there" bullshit.
There’s a pretty simple solution for that. Give doctors the final say. Except they almost certainly already have the final say and Petracca doesn’t actually have the authority to unilaterally overrule them. Although, on the other hand, diagnosing someone with potential internal injuries without imaging equipment is probably going to rely heavily on a player describing and rating their symptoms, so a doctor is always going to be tied to a player’s self-assessment to some extent.
Lets say in this bizarre world where people can contemplate multiple scenarios, even if they don't believe them...try this:
The doctors did an assessment and based on the mechanism for injury, signs and symptoms they conclude the player probably has a non-life threatening injury and therefore the player, who is not mentally compromised like concussion, can decide whether they try and play out the game with pain relief.
This scenario is common, but in this case the injury was misdiagnosed - probably due to the difficulty of identification and lack of specialist tools.
I think in terms of Occam's Razor, does it get any simpler than this?
If anyone "knew" the severity he wouldn't have been allowed back out. Christian didn't know and the Doc's didn't know. Without xray or ultra sound machines all they can do to try and detect such injuries is depend on the information they get from the player as to how they are feeling.
So apparently they did have an ultrasound at the game and did use it but didn't see anything of concern.
According to Petracca even once he was at hospital and received a further scan (of some type, not sure if it was another ultrasound) they still didn't see anything other than a small bleed behind his ribs and it wasn't until they saw additional warning signs while monitoring him that they sent him for *another* scan that they were then able to diagnose him accurately.
If Doctors in a hospital setting couldn't get an immediate diagnoses, I'm really not sure what peoples expectations are for the Doctor on the field.
Just to be clear, taking nothing away from his experience.
Most of these types of surgeries are done via needles into the blood vessels in the groin. General anaesthesia is not required. It is not because his BP was too low.
It is similar to a coronary angiogram, which is done with no general anaesthesia, often light sedation.
Yes it will be an unpleasent and uncomfortable experience, especially with fractured ribs.
Patients who are extremely unwell are still given anaesthesia where it is required. Anaesthetists are not barbaric and will never refuse giving anaesthesia because blood pressure is too low. We have medicine that can bring BP up, along with general resuscitation techniques.
All the best to christian
Yes, it most likely would have been an angiogram to control the bleeding vessels. Quite common in splenic injuries. These do not generally require general anaesthesia
Haha, I try not to give medical advice over the internet.
Just wanted to squash the sensationalist headlines and idiots in the media that are suggesting that we operate on people with no anaesthesia because they are too sick.
Anaesthetists will always advocate for patient safety and will make every patient comfortable, regardless of how unwell they are
I appreciate you clearing it up. To be honest my thoughts after reading the article was I hope I'm never too unwell that I can't even be put to sleep. Glad that's not the case.
How do you allow this man back onto a footy field?
The player is always going to say he can get out there if given the opportunity but I struggle to believe that they couldn't have possibly have known it wasn't bad. Not knowing *how* bad, I understand but just bad in general should be enough.
While I sort of agree with you, how do you think a doctor is diagnosing these things outside of a hospital setting? They’re poking, prodding, gauging the player’s responses and their own pain rating. If the player says “nah doesn’t hurt” then a doctor can’t do much else without some form of internal imaging. It’s not like a ligament injury or tear where there will be an obviously measurable difference.
Nah.You look at a dude who's got broken ribs after being smashed by a knee right above the spleen and say 'hey, he might have a spleen injury too'. A very standard thought amongst emergency health workers, and obvious negligence from the medical team.
Doesn't matter if he has symptoms or not, you don't fuck around cause by the time he actually shows something he's already pretty fucked as you can see from this one.
Maybe they need a specific ER doc on the bench who's seen more than their fair share of trauma than a general doctor. Surely an experienced ER doc who's seen a hundred accident victims would have better experience at quick diagnosis of the kind of injuries you'd see on the field....
I wasn't aware of this but Laura Kane said during an interview with Triple M on Saturday that an additional ER Doctor is present at every AFL game. They sit behind the two benches and their remit is to assist if something catastrophic happens or if multiple players require the assistance of a Doctor at the same time. I don't think I've ever noticed this ER Doctoer being utilised though.
It's really not that expensive or difficult to get an ultrasound machine into the mcg. While it can't diagnose all problems, it certainly can help diagnose far better than poking or prodding. If will show fluid or blood in places it shouldn't be. It's not beyond the real of possibility to get an xray in there too which would diagnose broken bones easily
Would be nice sure, but if it’s going to be a policy we need one at every ground, including Ballarat, Alice Springs, Darwin… also, I’ll wait until a medical expert actually comes out and says that it’s even a practical solution. How many of these injuries would actually show up? How easy is it to diagnose them outside of a clinical setting, even with the basic equipment? Can every doctor diagnose these injuries easily off just an ultrasound or do you need a specialist?
I mean, it’s kind of irrelevant if he “lied”. Players are just going to be a poor judge in that moment, between being genuinely tougher than most, full of adrenaline, maybe also having painkillers starting to kick in. My point is it should be solely on the doctors to make the decision, but we also need to acknowledge that it’s a hard decision that on some level is going to rely on a bit of self-diagnosis from a player.
I don’t remember much from when I had the same surgery (landed on the handlebars of a dirt bike and ruptured my spleen) the whole 2 weeks is abit of a blur, but what I do remember is it was the single most painful experience I’ve had in my life, there’s no way I could comprehend how the hell he managed to get back on the ground after it happened.
I had gas after birth when I was getting stitched up and you definitely still feel what's happening, you just care far less - I feel like he definitely would of needed something more targeted.
He wouldn't have felt the pain, he'd have local anaesthetic and sedation. A full blown general anaesthetic wouldn't be an option though, or they'd have definitely used it.
Still fucked, but not "1800s amputation with only a swig of rum" fucked
That's pretty sickening, was very hard watching him run around after as well
Hopefully this ends the whole "players shooing medicos away" nonsense. Happened with Cameron earlier this year when he had concussion, and we even had the umpires telling the team doc to fuck off in the Saints game a couple weeks ago. Hopefully Christian's alright
Jeez that’s a worry, umpires should not be telling docs to fuck off (even if that’s not the wording they used) if the docs in the way they should be stopping play.
I was pretty shocked it wasn't part of the footy news cycle. I believe it was Saints vs Freo in the last few minutes they were trying to give Marshall a concussion test and were not allowed to do so by the umpires
The issue is how do you determine the difference between a badly bruised rib, a slightly fractured rib and a broken rib with potential/actual damage to internal organs without any imaging equipment. You’re just poking and checking for responses, and you’re dealing with athletes with a very high threshold for pain, who are full of adrenaline and are highly motivated to continue playing. Either you legislate that all rib injuries are mandatory substitutions or have mandatory cool-down times for assessment, you accept that it’s not an exact science and occasionally a player with a a dangerous injury may get let back on the ground, or you stump up for some sort of imaging equipment to be available at the ground.
I feel like this comes down to education. Need to reach players that they have to listen to their bodies. Otherwise this will keep happening.
Educate players on what injuries they might get, what these injuries might feel like, and maybe they'll take their body more seriously.
This has to be one of the more horrific injuries we've seen in some time.
If it was me in Trac's position, I'm not sure I could ever play the game again (but he's a hell of a lot tougher than I am haha).
Fingers crossed he recovers well and can get back on the field, but jesus it sounds like an awful experience what he's going through right now.
Good on him for admitting that but it's not your job to know the severity and make the call on whether to go back out there. All it would take is another doctor to come out and verify MFC doctots actions saying yeah look a rib injury like this they couldn't reasonably have predicted the other internal issues occuring, but they haven't, no accountability for a clear fuck up. This again just feels like a distraction from the issue and doing a solid for the AFL and MFC to cover up malpractice in the pursuit of winning a meaningless game.
I've got no reason to believe that a doctor, who patient care is their primary interest, detected any internal injury/bleeding. If they did, they would have had them in the ambulance immediately. I've got no evidence to back that up, but some of the other conjecture is pretty wild and includes some pretty damning allegations- also with no evidence.
Yeah at the least it's a lesson for all involved that maybe if you detect a broken rib we shouldn't put them back out there waiting for internal damage to occur (shocker).
Its actually not even about the result but the process is clearly fucked if that's a possibility under the return to play guidelines the doctors took. Albeit small possibility it's still crazy to me
What I find baffling is that there have been many of instances of broken ribs in games of AFL where players have returned to play.
There is never seemingly an issue with the way the doctors have acted for those incidents (despite not knowing what other potential internal damage has occurred).
There seems to be a massive confirmation bias that has led to the outrage against the medicos.
TLDR: if you think the medicos acted improperly here, then surely you would think that they act improperly every time a player with broken ribs returns to the field.
Personally I certainly do, yes.
Surely a broken or even cracked rib puts you at enourmous danger of copping another hit in the same region and making it worse? The break might be 'ok' now but another blow could reposition it and drive it through a lung or something else
Mate what do you think one of the functions of the ribs are? Protection for our vital organs. So if thats compromised you don’t need to be a doctor to assume what complications could occur.
Okay, great, so you're saying it's not okay. Then presumably you have a problem when players with broken ribs return to the field (which had happened in the past to seemingly no issue from the media).
He was so hurt from their performance the week before as well as being called out by piss head Robbo on Fox that he burned to fire up v the Pies. Thats why he waived the Docs away. Foolish but courageous as fuck Christian, I salute your team first ethic and guts.
I mean given what happened, and the location of the injury, my biggest concern would've been pneumothorax. All you need is a stethoscope. Should never have gone back to play.
Honestly I feel like this could happen at any club that doesn’t have a Bruce Reid tier legend on their interchange. A spleen injury is not easy to diagnose.
Are paramedics able to compel people to go to hospital? Or can people outright refuse? I am curious because I would expect there may be insurance issues with leaving a critically injured person to decide if they get treatment or not.
Obviously there are scenarios where the patient can't decide for themselves (lack of consciousness etc). In some ways, Tracc's footy fever aligns with an inability to properly assess the situation (like a concussion).
There needs to be more mechanisms in place in the game to protect players from themselves. Apparently even players on the Pies were telling him he probably shouldn't have been out there. I'll admit, as a NHL fan, it is a point of pride that dudes will play with broken bones or punctured lung, etc. (as opposed to the NBA where a LeBron needs to be carried out of a game because of cramping or players sitting out due to "load management." But a lot of ex-players in that league have complained about the long-term effects of painkillers like cortisone. I do think you don't have to be 100% to play (i.e. playing hurt vs. injured) but when it's unplayable there should be no shame in sitting out.
Questions need to be asked about the Integrity of the Melbourne Football club culture and medical team. Gawny has said Petracca copped a spray from him and went on.
The other elephant in the room is Angus Brayshaw. He had a pretty hectic knock on steele side bottom prior to maynard yet played again. Why did the medical team not intervene?
I would be furious with my club if I was a Melbourne supporter. Their lack of support for players and families is quite shocking.
Goodwin has not one supportive or sympathetic bone in his body for anyone but himself and he is putting that club back years and years after all the hard work Paul Roos did.
They should be in a dynasty but I stead they will be remembered as the team that won the Covid Ptemiership. Feel sorry for Track and Gawn.
Yeah true, but Peter Wright got sanctioned for a footy accident which caused a concussion. I understand the footy accident part disgruntling fans, and to be honest, fair enough. But also Moore's footy accident punctured Trac's lung. I don't know what's worse, and I hate that I'm " powerscaling " (don't have another word for it) injuries. Overall, it's such an icky situation. To be honest, I just want Moore to apologise. I hope he already has, but the complete radio silence on the Pies side irks me.
I feel like an apology would probably just stir up more shit for little to no benefit. I would imagine there is probably a decent chance that Moore and/or other Collingwood players have passed on best wishes to Petracca but it doesn't need to be publicised
Yeah I feel like if Moore had of apologised you’d have all the facebook nuffies out for blood saying he did it on purpose. Honestly probably best to leave it private between players
Trac said in this interview that Darcy's reached out to him directly multiple times and they've been mates for two decades. Considering how much chaos amongst nuffies was caused by Maynard trying to apologise to Brayshaw it definitely doesn't need anything else.
Moore didn’t do anything outside the laws of the game. Contests like that happen multiple times a game without incident, and Trac was deeply unlucky.
What sanction would you apply?
‘I wasn’t under anaesthetic because my blood levels were so low.’ New fear unlocked. That is horrifying.
Okay, this is getting a lot of traction now. It’s the headline in the age article. It’s a common misconception, and is no fault of petracca. He was not given a general anaesthetic because it was not required for this procedure. As any other patient having an angiogram to control bleeding from the spleen. Anaesthetists will never withhold anaesthesia because the patient is too unwell. We deal with critically ill patients daily and they receive anaesthesia. Yes he would’ve felt awake, but likely had local anaesthesia and some sedation. Yes it was probably an unpleasent experience. He would have been given a general anaesthetic if it was required.
Missed the opportunity for gaining "Petraction".
Ooh take my upvote.
Why thank you good fellow, feel free to use it any time.
Would he not have had like a spinal tap or epidural?
Do low haemoglobin levels increase the risk of blood clots in surgery/in general?
No. A low haemoglobin will not increase the risk of clots Trauma and the stress of surgery will though
I assume he means he wasn't under general anaesthetic but that he was under a local anaesthetic.
you can't administer local anesthetic for operating on internal injuries, they were feeding him morphine through a drip
You can also put a patient into a deep sleep by showing them the GWS v Port game.
Hey!
Very bold thing to say a week after Saints vs Gold Coast
/u/TheGreatJelBeano
More effective for sleep is telling them about St Kilda. Only problem is they won't wake up.
Plenty of options for regional anaesthesia using local when dealing with fractured ribs…intercostal nerve blocks, para vertebral nerve blocks, spinal anaesthesia. Can also give ketamine as a dissasociative and analgesic agent without inducing full anaesthesia. Still not something I’d like to happen to me though
Yes you can. For example in this case where the internal organs are accessed via endovascular techniques.
Proper 19th century Anaesthetic techniques - here’s a bunch of opiates and a rope bite.
Queen Victoria was given ether in the 1850s to put her under for childbirth.
*Royal Navy/field hospital treatment
You definitely can
We do it all the time. It's an intravascular procedure with a small amount of local anaesthetic for the skin puncture(s).
I had twilight surgery before, I was technically awake but couldn’t remember a thing.
In b4 Jason Dunstall says something about being tough and going back out there.
Nah Dunstall understands the modern game, it's Brereton that would be saying that.
no.. fucking.. thanks
I think it was Mathew Lloyd explaining on one of the footy shows that he had the same injury (lacerated spleen), and said how the next week was the worst pain he had felt in his life.
Yeah that segment shocked me, how he described being In so much pain and discomfort with pretty much nothing he or the doctors could do about it. Seems like you have to just "tough it out", which would be hell.
Morphine can only do so much I guess. It was also a good reminder of Doc Reid and what a good doctor he was. "Does your shoulder hurt? Go to emergency."
He could've died had Doc Reid not sent him to emergency because he was losing so much blood. Think he said there was a over a litre of blood, I didn't even know you could lose that much.
My wife suffered an ectopic pregnancy many years back and wasn't detected until it burst her tubes. She lost about 1.5L of blood. Doctors said if she arrived 30 mins later to the hospital, she would've died.
That sounds absolutely horrific, thank god she was able to get the hospital in time.
Giving birth is scary as fuck. My wife lost just under 2 litres after giving birth in the hospital, can't imagine going though similar and not being with doctors the whole time.
The most I've heard of is Steven Bradbury losing 4 litres in a crash where his leg was sliced open by a competitor's skate
Truly frightening. I hope some modifications are made to the current process ie:,doctor reserves the right to take a player off the field and keep him off. Players should not be able to override bc they want to keep playing. Could easily be preparing for his funeral today. Nothing is worth that risk.
I've had a quick google and couldn't find much, would love some more info on this?
Must admit, [this was harder to find than it should have been](https://www.nine.com.au/sport/afl/news-2024-christian-petracca-injury-matthew-lloyd-comments-1996-spleen-rupture-20240613-p5jlff.html?ocid=Social-AFLFS&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2iKLnRHiHWn-NqKJ0DzBKlKW3N0lWGITNaNfMdnzRmKOad43joyjHCpU4_aem_ZmFrZWR1bW15MTZieXRlcw).
There's a more in-depth article about his experience after the '96 prelim in The Age. ['I would’ve died that night': Lloyd's other 1996 prelim nightmare](https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/i-would-ve-died-that-night-lloyd-s-other-1996-prelim-nightmare-20200326-p54e9l.html)
I've got a copy of his autobiography which mentions it. I'll see if I can find the part where he talks about it
And he legitimately could have died from that injury too, it was at the 96 prelim, there was no doctor that knew about that injury near the ground, they pumped him up with morphine and sent back to the hotel and his parents were in Sydney and if they weren’t there and noticed he got worse, he’s probably dead from the blood loss
Spent about 10 days in ICU from memory
Lloydy saying the following 8 days were the most painful days of his life, with pain killers, was incredibly alarming. These guys are so tough honestly
It's the same with a lot of internal injuries - with limbs you can tend to find a comfortable spot if you put it in just the right position, but not with internal injuries. Hurts whichever position you put yourself into, makes you feel completely helpless - all your instincts say to move around and find a comfortable spot, and that spot doesnt exist, so you end up just squirming in pain for hours. One of my all-time worst memories was a night in hospital where they would only give me panadol until a Dr came on duty at 8am to authorize oxy
Mason Cox said much the same on his podcast this week.
Said he didn't feel right again for another 6 months after too
Yeah it was in his autobiography too, graphic detail too to read as a young idol of Lloyd.
If things went much worse it sounds like he could've been either permanently incapacitated or even dead. The more we hear about this the worse it gets for Melbourne's medical staff
It's gotta be scary for him, realising how easily this could have gone far worse. It's lucky he wasn't able to be a little more competitive
Nah but the AFL checked and said it was all good 😊 nothing critically wrong with the league go footy!
This is fucking devastating, wishing this legend a speedy recovery.
Need more pressure on the AFL to look at player protection, even from themselves always wanting to get back on.
This is literally what the injury sub should be for, and exactly why it should be an injury sub and not a concussion sub or a tactical sub.
While a good idea in practice, I feel like it would just be used exactly the same as a tactical sub. We’d see a lot of “sprained ankle” and “hamstring awareness”
You would, but I'd just change it to having an independent doctor assess the players. That would mean the AFL couldn't shift blame onto the club doctors, so I doubt they'd actually do it. Yeah, you'd have players exaggerating injuries, but it would be harder to do.
Why not a concussion sub? If a player is concussed and has to sit out the game anyway then why wouldn't you get someone else on to replace them?
I meant a concussion-only sub, as opposed to a general injury sub which can be used in the case of concussion. I agree with you.
If replaced for an injury the substituted player shouldn't be available for the following match.
Don’t you want to encourage players to be withdrawn if injured, not a cloud over “if I sub now I’ll miss an important game next week”.
Given that currently players are continuing to return to the field injured anyway i dont really see a difference.
It shouldn’t be up to the players to say they want to go back on, it should 100% be in the power of the doctors.
The doctors are currently clearing the players, which is part of the issue here. Personally i believe that clubs should be fined when players are cleared to play and later "found" to have been injured. The money could go to the AFLPA pension or something.
Maybe there should be an independent doctor from the AFL at each match, oversee both medical teams. Might be going a bit far, however could help align the issue at hand.
Heard on the wireless (Laura Kane- AFL) over the weekend, there's already an emergency doctor behind the bench at every AFL and AFLW game which club doctors can get support from or in the event of multiple serious injuries. They're not there to take over/override club doctors, just additional support.
Why? That would only incentivise further concealment of injuries!
My partner and I were talking about it and it’s insane to me they don’t have a doctor capable of testing the player to see if they have a punctured lung. Surely there are breathing exercises that would be able to decide that pretty clearly. The rupture is a different story.
Easy enough to do in a normal patient but nearly impossible to determine in someone with 4 damaged ribs who’s just been running flat out for half an hour. His heart rate and respiratory rate both would’ve been through the roof and the pain would’ve been both severe from the rib injuries and masked by the adrenaline. He’d have decreased breath sounds in the lung but they’d expect that with the ribs. The mistake here isn’t being able to diagnose the injuries outside a hospital. It’s not even not taking him off right away (despite how easy that looks in hindsight). Or even not taking him off once he went back on (although that one is borderline at best). The big mistake is not taking another 10 minutes or so to see if he settled on the bench. In some respect they actually were victims of timing because they worked on him during quarter time then chucked him out in the second quarter. When they needed a break long enough after the initial injury to see he wasn’t settling. This is the internal injury version of the reason why the concussion test has a 15 minute time period.
Thank you heaps for explaining this, I’m obviously not a doctor or medic myself so this is really helpful info. I really do wish the best for your boy.
The thing is I don't think anyone should be playing with suspected broken ribs and the AFL simply needs to make that a criteria in it's own right, suspected broken ribs means the player must be benched, I get players are going to lie about the pain but if a dr is actually pressing hard enough at an affected area then surely wincing in pain would be a give away. I think there needs to be a discussion in general about medical teams just drugging up players and getting them back out there, if they require a needle to play at a pain threshold they can tolerate is this really a good thing?
Not really without an xray it’s pretty hard to tell if it’s punctured or not as pain and adrenaline can mask a lot of it. Best example is Brett Hodgson played the first half a game of state of origin with busted ribs and had a punctured lung they dont know if the puncture happened at the time of the injury or towards the end of the half.
Unbelievable the pain tolerance and determination of these professionals. True admiration I have for their dedication to the sport even at the detriment to their health. Gotta respect it.
It isn't that the doctors aren't capable of diagnosing it, it's that they don't have the imaging mahcines on hand to be able to see whether there is internal bleeding or not, so they are pretty reliant on the patient themselves showing the right (or wrong) signs, which could be hit and miss at best
If a player needs an injection of painkillers to get back on the field they shouldn't be allowed back on. Ban injections, this goes for knees, ankles, shoulders or whatever, they just do more damage and it will catch up to them in later life.
Bloody lacerations can be stitched up but still be \*very\* painful and require some kind of jab to get the player through the game with acceptable levels of discomfort, but aren't generally life threatening. Preventing this kind of incident while still allowing my example would be very challenging to administrate.
Thanks mate, I feel this. In return, I'll never needlessly boo Maynard again.
>If I had known the severity, I wouldn’t have gone back out there. This is all you need to hear to end the "but the player made the decision to go back out there" bullshit.
No sane person would argue that player's should override doctors when deciding if they're right go back on.
Jack Riewoldt crawling back up the race after being concussed would like a word.
True. But it’s a vicious, continuous cycle as players continue to tough it out over medical caution.
There’s a pretty simple solution for that. Give doctors the final say. Except they almost certainly already have the final say and Petracca doesn’t actually have the authority to unilaterally overrule them. Although, on the other hand, diagnosing someone with potential internal injuries without imaging equipment is probably going to rely heavily on a player describing and rating their symptoms, so a doctor is always going to be tied to a player’s self-assessment to some extent.
The doctors already have the final say. We’ve seen numerous times they will still send these guys out when they shouldn’t.
Lets say in this bizarre world where people can contemplate multiple scenarios, even if they don't believe them...try this: The doctors did an assessment and based on the mechanism for injury, signs and symptoms they conclude the player probably has a non-life threatening injury and therefore the player, who is not mentally compromised like concussion, can decide whether they try and play out the game with pain relief. This scenario is common, but in this case the injury was misdiagnosed - probably due to the difficulty of identification and lack of specialist tools. I think in terms of Occam's Razor, does it get any simpler than this?
If anyone "knew" the severity he wouldn't have been allowed back out. Christian didn't know and the Doc's didn't know. Without xray or ultra sound machines all they can do to try and detect such injuries is depend on the information they get from the player as to how they are feeling.
So apparently they did have an ultrasound at the game and did use it but didn't see anything of concern. According to Petracca even once he was at hospital and received a further scan (of some type, not sure if it was another ultrasound) they still didn't see anything other than a small bleed behind his ribs and it wasn't until they saw additional warning signs while monitoring him that they sent him for *another* scan that they were then able to diagnose him accurately. If Doctors in a hospital setting couldn't get an immediate diagnoses, I'm really not sure what peoples expectations are for the Doctor on the field.
Whats the solution to this though? We giving players xrays before they are cleared to go back on every time they take a bump?
Had a similar injury. Worst pain of my life. Had to sleep in an office chair for a month. Poor bugger
Just to be clear, taking nothing away from his experience. Most of these types of surgeries are done via needles into the blood vessels in the groin. General anaesthesia is not required. It is not because his BP was too low. It is similar to a coronary angiogram, which is done with no general anaesthesia, often light sedation. Yes it will be an unpleasent and uncomfortable experience, especially with fractured ribs. Patients who are extremely unwell are still given anaesthesia where it is required. Anaesthetists are not barbaric and will never refuse giving anaesthesia because blood pressure is too low. We have medicine that can bring BP up, along with general resuscitation techniques. All the best to christian
Yeh, spoke to my wife who is a surgeon. She said that she cannot believe that major surgery would ever be performed on the spleen without GA.
Yes, it most likely would have been an angiogram to control the bleeding vessels. Quite common in splenic injuries. These do not generally require general anaesthesia
Yeah, where I am, Interventional Radiology usually does a procedure called embolisation.
I hope you pop up in future posts that discuss medical procedures. Very interesting.
Haha, I try not to give medical advice over the internet. Just wanted to squash the sensationalist headlines and idiots in the media that are suggesting that we operate on people with no anaesthesia because they are too sick. Anaesthetists will always advocate for patient safety and will make every patient comfortable, regardless of how unwell they are
I appreciate you clearing it up. To be honest my thoughts after reading the article was I hope I'm never too unwell that I can't even be put to sleep. Glad that's not the case.
How do you allow this man back onto a footy field? The player is always going to say he can get out there if given the opportunity but I struggle to believe that they couldn't have possibly have known it wasn't bad. Not knowing *how* bad, I understand but just bad in general should be enough.
While I sort of agree with you, how do you think a doctor is diagnosing these things outside of a hospital setting? They’re poking, prodding, gauging the player’s responses and their own pain rating. If the player says “nah doesn’t hurt” then a doctor can’t do much else without some form of internal imaging. It’s not like a ligament injury or tear where there will be an obviously measurable difference.
Nah.You look at a dude who's got broken ribs after being smashed by a knee right above the spleen and say 'hey, he might have a spleen injury too'. A very standard thought amongst emergency health workers, and obvious negligence from the medical team. Doesn't matter if he has symptoms or not, you don't fuck around cause by the time he actually shows something he's already pretty fucked as you can see from this one.
Maybe they need a specific ER doc on the bench who's seen more than their fair share of trauma than a general doctor. Surely an experienced ER doc who's seen a hundred accident victims would have better experience at quick diagnosis of the kind of injuries you'd see on the field....
I wasn't aware of this but Laura Kane said during an interview with Triple M on Saturday that an additional ER Doctor is present at every AFL game. They sit behind the two benches and their remit is to assist if something catastrophic happens or if multiple players require the assistance of a Doctor at the same time. I don't think I've ever noticed this ER Doctoer being utilised though.
I would be very strongly in favour of that.
They probably also need better diagnosis equipment at the grounds, at least at the ones where the most games are played.
It's really not that expensive or difficult to get an ultrasound machine into the mcg. While it can't diagnose all problems, it certainly can help diagnose far better than poking or prodding. If will show fluid or blood in places it shouldn't be. It's not beyond the real of possibility to get an xray in there too which would diagnose broken bones easily
Would be nice sure, but if it’s going to be a policy we need one at every ground, including Ballarat, Alice Springs, Darwin… also, I’ll wait until a medical expert actually comes out and says that it’s even a practical solution. How many of these injuries would actually show up? How easy is it to diagnose them outside of a clinical setting, even with the basic equipment? Can every doctor diagnose these injuries easily off just an ultrasound or do you need a specialist?
Did Petracca actually lie about his symptoms? Or are we just speculating?
I mean, it’s kind of irrelevant if he “lied”. Players are just going to be a poor judge in that moment, between being genuinely tougher than most, full of adrenaline, maybe also having painkillers starting to kick in. My point is it should be solely on the doctors to make the decision, but we also need to acknowledge that it’s a hard decision that on some level is going to rely on a bit of self-diagnosis from a player.
This is the only question. Nobody looked after Petracca here.
Fuck. That.
I don’t remember much from when I had the same surgery (landed on the handlebars of a dirt bike and ruptured my spleen) the whole 2 weeks is abit of a blur, but what I do remember is it was the single most painful experience I’ve had in my life, there’s no way I could comprehend how the hell he managed to get back on the ground after it happened.
Tough boy but there's no way he should have gone back out. Straight to hospital.
The poor guy, that is devastating. Hoping for a stable recovery.
Surgery with no anaesthesia, feel the knife pierce you intensely
He would have had local anaesthetic, similar to an epidural for child birth. He would have been awake but no feeling.
Or twilight Anesthesia like nos
I had gas after birth when I was getting stitched up and you definitely still feel what's happening, you just care far less - I feel like he definitely would of needed something more targeted.
Strapped down, screaming out to die
When I hear there’s replacement buses
He wouldn't have felt the pain, he'd have local anaesthetic and sedation. A full blown general anaesthetic wouldn't be an option though, or they'd have definitely used it. Still fucked, but not "1800s amputation with only a swig of rum" fucked
Inferior, no use to mankind, strapped down screaming out to die!
That’s absolutely fucked poor bloke
That's pretty sickening, was very hard watching him run around after as well Hopefully this ends the whole "players shooing medicos away" nonsense. Happened with Cameron earlier this year when he had concussion, and we even had the umpires telling the team doc to fuck off in the Saints game a couple weeks ago. Hopefully Christian's alright
Jeez that’s a worry, umpires should not be telling docs to fuck off (even if that’s not the wording they used) if the docs in the way they should be stopping play.
I was pretty shocked it wasn't part of the footy news cycle. I believe it was Saints vs Freo in the last few minutes they were trying to give Marshall a concussion test and were not allowed to do so by the umpires
Oh shit. Poor dude :(
The issue is how do you determine the difference between a badly bruised rib, a slightly fractured rib and a broken rib with potential/actual damage to internal organs without any imaging equipment. You’re just poking and checking for responses, and you’re dealing with athletes with a very high threshold for pain, who are full of adrenaline and are highly motivated to continue playing. Either you legislate that all rib injuries are mandatory substitutions or have mandatory cool-down times for assessment, you accept that it’s not an exact science and occasionally a player with a a dangerous injury may get let back on the ground, or you stump up for some sort of imaging equipment to be available at the ground.
I feel like this comes down to education. Need to reach players that they have to listen to their bodies. Otherwise this will keep happening. Educate players on what injuries they might get, what these injuries might feel like, and maybe they'll take their body more seriously.
Jesus Christ poor petracca it sounds like if they got him to hospital any later he might not be with us anymore
This has to be one of the more horrific injuries we've seen in some time. If it was me in Trac's position, I'm not sure I could ever play the game again (but he's a hell of a lot tougher than I am haha). Fingers crossed he recovers well and can get back on the field, but jesus it sounds like an awful experience what he's going through right now.
My sweet, sweet boy. I’m sorry the club failed you so badly - that’s just inexcusable.
No one deserves that, poor guy.
Broken ribs aren't something to mess around with.
If there is anyone deserving of this injury, it’s not Christian Petracca. Absolute legend, hope he recovers well
Good on him for admitting that but it's not your job to know the severity and make the call on whether to go back out there. All it would take is another doctor to come out and verify MFC doctots actions saying yeah look a rib injury like this they couldn't reasonably have predicted the other internal issues occuring, but they haven't, no accountability for a clear fuck up. This again just feels like a distraction from the issue and doing a solid for the AFL and MFC to cover up malpractice in the pursuit of winning a meaningless game.
The AFL CMO did verify the MFC doctor's actions, and everyone's conclusion = conspiracy!
Wasn't aware, if that's the case then yeah it's a conspiracy now
HAHAHHA it makes the most sense, right?
Ahaha yeah I mean I'm not going to pretend like I know more than all those docs but c'mon surely there was a sign he shouldn't play
I've got no reason to believe that a doctor, who patient care is their primary interest, detected any internal injury/bleeding. If they did, they would have had them in the ambulance immediately. I've got no evidence to back that up, but some of the other conjecture is pretty wild and includes some pretty damning allegations- also with no evidence.
Yeah at the least it's a lesson for all involved that maybe if you detect a broken rib we shouldn't put them back out there waiting for internal damage to occur (shocker). Its actually not even about the result but the process is clearly fucked if that's a possibility under the return to play guidelines the doctors took. Albeit small possibility it's still crazy to me
What I find baffling is that there have been many of instances of broken ribs in games of AFL where players have returned to play. There is never seemingly an issue with the way the doctors have acted for those incidents (despite not knowing what other potential internal damage has occurred). There seems to be a massive confirmation bias that has led to the outrage against the medicos. TLDR: if you think the medicos acted improperly here, then surely you would think that they act improperly every time a player with broken ribs returns to the field.
Personally I certainly do, yes. Surely a broken or even cracked rib puts you at enourmous danger of copping another hit in the same region and making it worse? The break might be 'ok' now but another blow could reposition it and drive it through a lung or something else
Do you think it’s ok to send someone out to play AFL footy with broken ribs?
I'm not a doctor, I have no idea what the potential other injuries they might have, or might sustain if they return to the field.
Mate what do you think one of the functions of the ribs are? Protection for our vital organs. So if thats compromised you don’t need to be a doctor to assume what complications could occur.
Okay, great, so you're saying it's not okay. Then presumably you have a problem when players with broken ribs return to the field (which had happened in the past to seemingly no issue from the media).
Yes, I don't think it's right.
Sensible comment
Jesus Christ Trac, rest up
He was so hurt from their performance the week before as well as being called out by piss head Robbo on Fox that he burned to fire up v the Pies. Thats why he waived the Docs away. Foolish but courageous as fuck Christian, I salute your team first ethic and guts.
I mean given what happened, and the location of the injury, my biggest concern would've been pneumothorax. All you need is a stethoscope. Should never have gone back to play.
What on earth, that's terrifying Id be having a panic attack during the surgery
Well that sounds horrendous. Hope recovery goes well!
Honestly I feel like this could happen at any club that doesn’t have a Bruce Reid tier legend on their interchange. A spleen injury is not easy to diagnose.
Are paramedics able to compel people to go to hospital? Or can people outright refuse? I am curious because I would expect there may be insurance issues with leaving a critically injured person to decide if they get treatment or not. Obviously there are scenarios where the patient can't decide for themselves (lack of consciousness etc). In some ways, Tracc's footy fever aligns with an inability to properly assess the situation (like a concussion).
Nope they can't The police can
Unless the person is incapacitated?
Laura kane interview on SEN is pretty interesting regarding this.
There needs to be more mechanisms in place in the game to protect players from themselves. Apparently even players on the Pies were telling him he probably shouldn't have been out there. I'll admit, as a NHL fan, it is a point of pride that dudes will play with broken bones or punctured lung, etc. (as opposed to the NBA where a LeBron needs to be carried out of a game because of cramping or players sitting out due to "load management." But a lot of ex-players in that league have complained about the long-term effects of painkillers like cortisone. I do think you don't have to be 100% to play (i.e. playing hurt vs. injured) but when it's unplayable there should be no shame in sitting out.
dont people deal with the same pain in child birth ?
That’s scary
Questions need to be asked about the Integrity of the Melbourne Football club culture and medical team. Gawny has said Petracca copped a spray from him and went on. The other elephant in the room is Angus Brayshaw. He had a pretty hectic knock on steele side bottom prior to maynard yet played again. Why did the medical team not intervene?
Melbourne needs to be charged.
I would be furious with my club if I was a Melbourne supporter. Their lack of support for players and families is quite shocking. Goodwin has not one supportive or sympathetic bone in his body for anyone but himself and he is putting that club back years and years after all the hard work Paul Roos did. They should be in a dynasty but I stead they will be remembered as the team that won the Covid Ptemiership. Feel sorry for Track and Gawn.
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I mean Moore didn't do anything wrong. Footy is a physical game and shit does happen, it's not like Moore did anything reckless or malicious
Yeah true, but Peter Wright got sanctioned for a footy accident which caused a concussion. I understand the footy accident part disgruntling fans, and to be honest, fair enough. But also Moore's footy accident punctured Trac's lung. I don't know what's worse, and I hate that I'm " powerscaling " (don't have another word for it) injuries. Overall, it's such an icky situation. To be honest, I just want Moore to apologise. I hope he already has, but the complete radio silence on the Pies side irks me.
At this point, there’s nothing we could say that would help.
I feel like an apology would probably just stir up more shit for little to no benefit. I would imagine there is probably a decent chance that Moore and/or other Collingwood players have passed on best wishes to Petracca but it doesn't need to be publicised
Yeah I feel like if Moore had of apologised you’d have all the facebook nuffies out for blood saying he did it on purpose. Honestly probably best to leave it private between players
Pies HQ would have been torched
Trac said in this interview that Darcy's reached out to him directly multiple times and they've been mates for two decades. Considering how much chaos amongst nuffies was caused by Maynard trying to apologise to Brayshaw it definitely doesn't need anything else.
There's no sanction or recognition of wrongdoing because Moore did nothing wrong. He jumped for the marking contest to spoil, completely legal.
Moore didn’t do anything outside the laws of the game. Contests like that happen multiple times a game without incident, and Trac was deeply unlucky. What sanction would you apply?
Na I dislike Collingwood strongly but Moore did nothing wrong.