Broken Femur on start

So my buddy who normally rides a slalom ski decides he wants to try my board. On his 5th attempt to get up he starts screaming "MY LEG" I think he's messing around as we pull up to him then I see his left leg all distorted like I've never seen any leg before. We have to pull him backwards on the swim deck after we detached the bindings and motored back to the launch to meet the ambulance. When the EMT's were putting the leg in traction, I had to grab his ankle and stretch his leg out straight. It was like he had an extra joint in his upper leg. He had surgery today and they put a rod in.
I can't seem to figure out why this happened. He must have had his shoulders way forward, knees way apart, and let go of the rope too late or something.
Craziest injury I ever saw happen to someone....

I have heard about this happening but never really understood. It tends to happen with bigger guys though right?

I was told by the surgeon when Chris broke his that if one puts enough force on the upper leg and it's vectored so that the force is centered behind the knee (like you were sitting when extreme force was applied) the femur can break fairly easily.

As a long time slalom skier I can see how this could happen easily if one tried to muscle a wakeboard up like it was a ski. Let's face it you don't muscle a wakeboard up, you ride it up and the technique is completely different. We had a couple of hard core slalom guys in the ski club who gave up trying to get up on a wakeboard because the rope would get yanked out of their hands every time because they just couldn't figure it out.

He's 6'0 and 185 so he's not huge. Spoke to him before. He's in good spirits. Told him he owed me $100 for the binding the EMT's cut off his foot ;-) The funny thing is it was my boat and I organized the trip but the only time I got wet was when I jumped in and pulled him out!

Tell him "welcome to the broken femur club" I broke mine doing a tantrum 2 summers ago, but I'm finally back on the board and loving it.

Just like his - 3 pieces.

The only guy I personally know of this happening to was a pretty big fellow. I never rode with him. I just worked with him but I do know he was big into slalom and wakeboarding. That's a really serious injury. He was in a wheelchair for a while. I'm glad he was ok but it really sucked for me since we both were in charge of installing and moving computer equipment in a building that was too old to have to meet modern handicap access standards. Last I talked to him, he was riding again but that was a long time ago (about 7 or 8 years).

This guy told me that he broke both femurs trying to get up on a wakeboard. This was a guy in his mid 20's. He said the driver pulled him up really fast and jerked him foward quick and bent him over the board and snapped his femurs.

Crazy stuff does happen.

Got Milk?

Exactly what I was thinking tonis. That seems like their bones aren't exactly strong if they break like that. Maybe it's time to drink some more calcium? I understand that it is a weird pressure and that it could technically happen to anyone, but I've had a lot of falls off of stuff that normally break bones and the worst I've ever done was sprain my ankle jumping down a flight of stairs. I drink a lot of milk by the way. Goooood stuff.

The guys that I've known who have broken bones wakeboarding ( femur included) were guys whose diet was less than spectacular...think cheesburgers and mac/cheese, the only time they drank milk was with cookies, lol. Also the 4 guys never step foot in a gym and other than wakeboarding very un athletic.

Yeah, being 6'4 280 and a former slalom guy I struggled the first couple of times trying. Bending the hell out of my buddy's flyhigh pole. Now I can pop up behind a wave runner. Always try to explain to the slalom guys to think backwards, it's hard to convince them to do it. Broken femur, that's freaky.

I had a guy break his Femur Behind my boat is 2004. Super freaky when it happened. A lot like your story. My buddy Jeff Just jumped the wake, landed in the flats and screamed when he landed. We went to pick him up he was a basketcase. Just freaking about his leg being broken, I to did not believe him at all. We got him on the boat cut his binding off and called 911.

My buddy (a big guy) spiral fractured his femur a couple of summers ago first learning to get up. It took an hour and a half to get him to shore. Board spins and the muscles contract (requires large muscles) to hold it back and the bone gives way. Pretty crazy.

i broke my femur a few years back and i'm not a big guy at all. i was only like 12 at the time, probably like 90 lbs (not big at all). snapped it clean in half. it was the weirdest feeling ever. but since then i have came back stronger and become a way better rider. going down is all part of the game.

had this happen to a guy last summer... he had never done any watersports... snapped his femer on the 3rd try.... just trying to get up.... really wierd... i actually made a post after the fact and several chimed in then as well.. good luck and wish him a speedy recovery...

My son has always worked out, stretched and above all has a diet that makes me embarrassed when I think about how I eat. He rode 10 years with nary a scratch and all it took was one moment of bad judgement, trying to save a trick that he knew wasn't going right, a trick he could do in his sleep up to that point, and bam, broken femur.

I wish you could blame it on a bad diet, but this is a sport that's very easy to hurt yourself doing regardless of your condition. Let's face it when a guy can break a femur just getting up what does that say about the forces a wakeboard can put on ones legs, especially if they become locked in with the board somehow.

So I saw him in the hospital today and the guy is walking around on crutches a bit already. They made him go down the stairs 2 days after his break. Unbelievable he could do that but the rod really does the trick. 2 incisions is all they needed. No cast or anything. He's getting released tomorrow.
Now he can drive the boat!!