Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Kneecap to the left....

Freak accident at work yesterday. First day back after Christmas, kids get back tommorrow. I was in my room working and had to run out front to meet my young nephew who likes to help me set up. Jumped up out of my swivelling offce chair and "BAM" hit my knee on the desk.

Not too much pain, but my left leg was locked in an upright position with my knee cap spectacularly forming a gruesome-looking elbow sticking out on the left. It was just awful to look at but didn't give me too much pain unless I moved.

My nephews comes in just then, I tell him where to go to get help, other teachers and school nurse gather around. By this time I'm on crutches so am all right in place, but cannot move hardly at all, and certainly not bend my leg. Other than that, if I didn't move I was OK, with pain growing steadily as swelling set in. At least I could fill out the accident report forms and direct my nephew and other folks on what to do to set up for tomorrow.

My buddy has a pickup truck but getting me out there was a problem, liability and all. Nothing for it but to call an ambulance. Up to this point I had been incredibly macho ( <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />) in the eyes of the other teachers, making jokes about my horrible-looking knee, but when those guys lifted my leg onto the gurney I'm afraid my stony exterior broke a bit. Man, I told 'em everything, name,rank, serial number the works <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Interesting ride to the Emergency Room. San Antonio has more'n one million people and only twenty-six ambulances. Talking to the guys, if someone wants an ambulance they legally HAVE to comply, sometimes getting late to real accident scenes while some wuss cries over a hangnail and such.

At the hospital the very capable ER guy first tries to pop the kneecap back, no luck my muscles were locked and my leg rigid. My wife met me there and I also ran into an old friend who I hadn't seen in years, a neat kid from years ago. His wife had been in for observation concerning a pregnancy.

About a two-hour wait while they dealt with real emergencies, in the meantime they gave me two shots of morphine. Interesting, I never had morphine before. I was expecting it to eliminate the pain but it didn't, just gave me a mild warm, sleepy glow.

When they finally got to me they used "waking sedation", a powerful but short acting muscle relaxant. They ask you questions and when you reply in gibberish they figure you're ready. I remember the first two shots and they gave me a third when, after they figured I was out, the Doc asked the nurse how many shots I got I anwered "two", so they gave me a third.

Took the Doc a while to get it back in (which is might be a good sign, meaning everthing is still tight and all) and he had to call in a second guy. To hear my wife tell it, they were just on the verge of operating when it popped in.

They say under that sort of anaethesia you can blabber anything, I wish we could have recorded it. Mostly I was talking about early childhood, my parents and math formulas <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" /> so my wife tells me.

The Doc did say I was the only patient he had with that who didn't scream when he pushed, pulled and twisted, apparently I just thrashed around a bit and arched up. I wish I could take credit for that but the first I knew of anything my knee was back in and they were taking Xrays. No pain.

Well hey! A hazy, relaxed ride home, an early night, and a restful sleep. Gotta wear a brace for a while, but to be honest if I didn't know, by the way my knee feels this morning I wouldn't know it was ever injured, figuring I just slept on it wrong.

I'm gonna go into work today but prob'ly they will send me home, at least this first day.

Anyone else have such an injury? What has been the outcome?

Birdwatcher

Sorry about your accident Birdy. Goes to prove the old adage Look before you leap don't it?

Never had exactly the same troubles as you got. Did wreck the acls in my right knee years ago and never had it fixed. It will still jump out now and then but because it has happened so many times it don't particularly hurt any more. Just can't walk until I beat it back inplace. Now that you have loosened yours up it might go again easier than it should.

My knee is also a durn good weather predictor and authritus ain't loads of fun.

You get to take MLK's birthday off anyway so rest up.

BCR

I've seen a couple dislocated kneecaps - one was a 35-ish guy that somehow did it going in for a layup, and one was a 12-year old football player.

Man, those are nastly looking...ouchies.

Both these guys were back in action in a week or so. The kid was full steam ahead like it never happened. He's 21-years old now and never had a hint of problem because of the knee - ahhh, youth.

The layup guy continued to play, but acted like he was about to step on a mine for quite a while. He claimed the knee felt fine, but he didn't act like it for quite some time.

You're old like me, Birdwatcher, I'm surprised they didn't just shoot you - Texas and all that. Of course, I'm glad they didn't...

My best medical advice is don't listen to me. My second best advice is to wrangle an MRI after the swelling goes down. It sounds like your knee came out of this well, but any little piece of bone or cartilage that was knocked loose can raise hell in the long run. There's just no place for fragments in a joint, and an MRI now might prevent a future problem.

my 17-year-old son feels your pain. during a wrestling match dec. 17, he was winning 11-2 and going for a double leg pick-up and pinning combination when his left knee cap decided to stay on the mat while the rest of him went elsewhere. it dislocated almost three inches up and to the outside. tore some soft tissue. he's wearing a brace. went back to the doc yesterday. still too much pain when the knee is manipulated. he's out for two more weeks. if he returns for the seaon, it'll be the week of sectionals. qualifying for state looks way doubtful this season, after qualifying his ninth and 10th grade seasons. my son is tough. it was a hard thing to see him turn the color of copy paper and actually groan. it was the ref who stopped the match, though, not my son. x-rays also showed he played a whole football season and wrestled half a season with a calcium chip floating around his osgood-slater lump on that same knee. looks like one-day surgery in february to remove that lump and chip finally. tough, tough kid ...
hope you do fine, bird-man.

Did that back when I was in my early twenties. Took a spill on a dirtbike, and couldn't get up. I just gritted my teeth, and moved it back to the center of my knee. Yes, it hurt, but I was miles from help, and couldn't stand to look at that ugly thing! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> Here's hoping you heal fast!

never popped out a knee cap but im all of 23 years old and have bad knees with no interesting sports story or accident to go with them just bad genes. about 4 weeks ago i was getting into my truck, shifted my wieght to my left leg to hop up, nothing unusual and bam my knee joint popped back, hyperextending the joint, saw stars said a few choice words, it popped back to its normal position and i grabbed the stearing wheel for dear life so i wouldnt hit the ground. at this point i have invented a few new curse words, my fiance' is trying to figure out what i did, and one of her daughters is saying "Sheridan, you said the H word.......Sheridan you said the S word......SHERIDAN you said the F WORD!.........." and so on for a good 5 minutes. i finally get settled down enough to tell Darla what happened, she is dang sure she needs to take me to the hospital but cant figure out how shes going to move me. i insist i dont need to go to the hospital, i heard no "pops" so all my ligiments and such should still be in the right spots if a bit stretched and all i probably did was bruise the cartilage like i did 4 years previous when something similar happened. i manage to crawl over to the passanger seat. after a few more choice words, hearing in the background......"Sheridan you said the............." we drive the three mile home, i hobble into the house with a bit of help, i THANK GOD the doctor gives Darla percocets for her migraines, take one and pass out. i spend the next day on the couch and am back at work the following day. all i did was manage to bruise the cartilige. its still a bit sore but im walking find now. hope you get better, cruches and braces suck.

Reminds me of my one and only attempt to dunk a basketball in high school gym class, I landed on another guys foot and my gym teacher wrenched mine back to the front. He was an ex football player. Back inthe 70's in Canada there were long waits for exploratory surgery on young healthy guys so it went un fixed. Much later in life when I was about 30 I found out it was a shredded ACL. Good for you it's not.

Birdwatcher,

Sorry to hear about you injury. The comment on the MRI is good advice. Also, keep a time/date log of everything (what you told the Doctor/what he did/what he told you). Hopefully you will never have to use it. Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way on the log and privately contracted Worker's Comp. here in Nevada.

I understand your pain. My left knee cap has an unusually large amount of sideways movement to it. It popped out twice while I was younger when I was getting out of bed. I didn't have any pressure on the leg so it never hurt, just VERY uncomfortable. I messed with it for a few seconds and it popped back in. I never thought about it much. Then one day at work I had it pop out just as I was putting weight on that leg. Imagine your lower leg bending 90 degrees sideways as you fall down. Pain. I had surgery to remove the busted cartilage. Since mine was popping out on it's own and not from impact accidents, while in there, the doctor evened up the sideways pressure on the knee cap by cutting some of the 'stuff' that holds the knee cap in position. He said it shouldn't happen again, and it hasn't.

Old?

Old?

He listened to Black Sabbath in high school, fer Pete's sake! He's just a baby! That couldn'ta been more than...oh, ten years ago--no, wait...fifteen...twenty...no, thirty...oh.

Oh.

Never mind.

First a relevant quote about age from one Groucho Marx...


Back to the topic; well, at least I ain't alone here.

Boggy, you and I must have the same right knee, I got an ACL injury years ago and toughed it out, being one of those "Doctor? I don't need no stinkin' doctors" types. That knee has been reminding me ever since that doctors do indeed have merit. There's not much quite like hobbling back through two miles of dense cedar thickets, brush, deep leaf litter and steep Hill Country terrain while your knee slowly stiffens up, and then getting home and being stopped dead in your tracks while your figure out how on earth you're going to step down off of that 8" curb before crossing the street. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

This left knee is my GOOD knee <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> "Sigh"... well reading here I expect it could have been worse.

True story... I was in a store a little bit earlier today shopping for knee braces and got to talking to another guy about my own age wearing a serious knee brace, turns out he's just a bit shy of needing a whole new knee. Next thing I see (no joke at all here) two aisles down was a gentleman in a wheelchair, again about my own age, who had lost both his legs. Kinda put things in perspective real quick.....

Birdwatcher

i have had 3 surguries on my right knee and 2 on my left, you are very lucky that they got it popped back in they could not get mine popped back in and the doc said it may never be right again........blake

I've got a few of those old ones that come back and remind me every now and then. Today brings a new pain. I just got home from having one of my wisdom teeth removed. Its not cool at all. Only thing I can eat is gauze, and I'm starving. OH well, I'll be back 10-8 tomorrow.

Sorry about the accident. I hope you recover quickly.

That waking sedation is wild stuff. I had it but didn't have anything to say at the time. I had an endoscope down my throat for most of it. I'm glad I don't remember that. My wife said it wasn't pretty.

Good luck, with your recovery. You gotta be careful, alot of danger in teaching, desks, staplers, cafeteria food, etc. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

gwinrider... I'll concede the machismo trophy to you <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />.

Speaking of motorcycles...

Hunter... during my motorcycle period I put 200,000 miles plus on motorcycles needing nary so much as a band-aid, only to be felled by a teacher's desk <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Birdwatcher

Don't feel bad about the desk - the worst knee injury I've had was caused by kneeling on one of my daughter's jacks on a cement floor. The bastid jack made a "POP" sound as it punctured. It hurt so bad I tried to catch my weight and dislocated my left thumb...

I just laid there for a while...

I don't suppose you have a machismo trophy in that bag for me?

I spent five years dealing with the damage caused to both knees and my feet by kicking a food cart. It ain't fair to have a war wound and no war story.

Hope you get better soon there BW.

C'mon - what's the story?

I once broke both kneecaps simultaneously but have never had a dislocation. Didja know you can't limp when they are both broke? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />