By Eleanor Emis
If you have seen multiple people on campus with a boot on a foot, or crutches in their hands, and even me sitting in a wheelchair, then your observations are correct. These past two weeks to be specific, several students have been injured due to sport specific injuries, the majority being in the ankle. From myself to Kyra Brewster (10), Luke Ng (12), Soo Wei Goh (12) and Noah Kaney (12), all of us have shared sprained and broken ankles.
It all started two weeks ago when Kyra and myself both injured our ankles. It was a Monday afternoon, and I had my weekly rugby practice. I was sprinting while doing a practice game and all of a sudden my feet stopped before my body had time to catch up. At the same time, my ankles inverted. It hurt pretty bad, but thankfully Mr. Riffey was able to come to my rescue and help me out. He told me later that I had a grade 2 ankle sprain on my right foot and a grade 1 on my left. After 2 weeks of recovery I am now boot free and can walk normally on my own. Little did I know right before I sprained my own ankle, Kyra Brewster had broken hers.
Kyra explains how she felt after she found out it wasn’t a sprain but a hairline fracture in her foot: “When I found out that my ankle was broken I was really disappointed because it meant that my basketball season was completely over. Even though it was really sad to hear, I looked forward to learning about the healing process and set my goal to be healed for the football season." Thankfully Kyra now has progressed to only having to walk on her boot and not use crutches.
ISKL the following week added 3 additional ankle sprains. Noah Kaney sprained his ankle a couple days before the team was due to head out to KL and at the tournament Luke Ng and Soo Wei Goh stretched ligaments in their ankles as well. Luke said, “It was disappointing to be down 3 starters and that I was very disappointed to be unable to play the rest of the tournament. It was tough to see ISKL win again.”
Noah Kaney said, “I think that its super weird, within a 2 week span, around 5 people all injured their ankle and if counting the non-related ankle injuries it’s even more. It stinks because ankle injuries are one of the most common injuries and it just happens so much. It’s annoying because sometimes you have to use crutches and wear a boot, and it just inconvenient getting around places.”
Noah is very true by saying that ankle injuries are very common, however it rises the question if there was any way to prevent these injuries or to have done something better or different. Mr. Riffey came to say that, “Some of the sprains are just unlucky and their feet fall on someone else’s foot. Or that the ground on upper field is bad or the students aren’t actually following rehab like they should. All of them are unlucky sprains. Very unfortunate for the players.”
Overall these past two weeks have been having full elevators and lots of crutches to share around with other kids. Moving forward you have to ask yourself how to prevent an ankle sprain when you are being active in a sport. From all that I have learned by taking Mr. Riffey’s Sports Medicine class and seeing him work with students is that warm ups are important. Stretch out your ankles before using them and do exercises to strengthen those muscles and ligaments. And if you do injure yourself and sprain it, follow the correct rehab exercises for a full recovery.
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