Broken femur while learning?

Not sure how many active readers on Wakeworld, but I'll estimate over 1000. I've never seen or even heard of this, and after saying "This has never happened before," I wanted to see if anyone has seen this before.

My friend who is a 33 year old male, average in most respects, snowboards a little, and is a new transport from France, gave wakeboarding a try. This was his 4th or 5th attempt to get onto plane on his first time on my boat. He started off pushing too much water, but quickly got half way onto plane. Just as I was accelerating past 10 MPH, he quickly shoots to his heel side, buries his nose end and lets go of the rope.

I figured a little more instruction and he would be up next pull. As we circled around him, he said he broke his leg. I told him to suck it up, but quickly noticed his right leg looked like it had two knees. HE BROKE HIS FEMUR!!!

He sucked it up like a bigger man than me, in order to not make the kids on board get scared. After Lake Patrol with EMTs arrived, he was transported to the hospital. He'll be fine, but my wife has a few friends who wanted to try wakeboarding, but are now too scared.

I figured this was the best place to ask all who read... I've seen and heard of plenty of injuries from going big, or trying tricks, but has anyone ever heard of such a random leg break while learning to get up?

Sorry for your friends injury. I have never seen something like this happen with what appears to be a fairly slow moving minimal force fall.

Recommendation: get a Sky Ski and get all the other friends up on that!!

Wow thats crazy! A friend of ours just did the same thing about a month ago. It was his second time riding and broke it trying to get out of the water. I thought the same thing. NO WAY! I never heard any one say something like that before so I did not post any thing on it. I thought it was a freak accident.

Wow. The worst I have seen has been a bloody nose from a face plant. Sorry to hear about that. I hope he recovers quickly.

4 summers ago one of my best friends was trying his hand at wake boarding for the first time and he too broke his Femur. It was a spiral fracture so I think as the board twisted his muscles resisted and SNAP! He was in the water for an hour and a half trying to get back into the boat and back to the launch. Unfortunately as an adult the healing process is much slower than when we were kids it took him over 3 months in a wheel chair before he could start walking again where as my daughter broke hers last spring and was back walking in 6-7 weeks.

A month ago we were at banks lake and had to load a guy into our boat to take him to shore that broke his femur trying to ride behind a waverunner.
Like aaron said I thought it was a freak accident. There was another waverunner with this group and I thought maybe he got run over.

Sorry to hear. This injury is posted at least once a year. It is a lot of force when a beginner is plowing when trying to get up. Especially if he gets out of alignment and all the weight shifts to one leg.


My neighbor pulled his hamstring almost in half doing the same.

Same thing happened to a friend-of-a-friend of mine a few years ago. Blew me away too at the time.

I've heard it happening, but not too often. It's a freak thing.

I have heard of it happening many times. Usually with novices, and often strong guys. They try to muscle it. Instead of letting the board come under them...then stand up on top of the board....they try to keep the board out front, and pivot up. The forces are immense if you do it that way.

Make sure when you you trying to teach a novice how to get up, that they understand to let the board come under them, heels to butt...and side slide. Then once the board pushes up...simply stand up on the board.

Im thinkin osteoporosis.

Weak bones!!!!!

Have him tested. This is a serious condition for a such young guy.

I knew a girl in Bellevue who had the same experience. I wasn't there at the time, but she said it was her first 10 or 15 pulls ever, and she'd barely gotten up when it happened. She was in traction & then a cast for months from it. Other than that she seemed like she was pretty healthy.

I'm with you Jim -

I'm not a doctor or nothin, but get a bone density scan immediately.

It's alot of pressure, but a femur is a pretty big bone that usually requires some serious impact to break.

Maybe he had a pre-existing injury, such as a fracture that wasn't healed?

Was this a one leg in - one leg out injury?

I have seen advanced riders get femur fractures, but not beginners like this. Usually happens to advanced riders when they fall and one leg comes out leaving the wakeboard to twist violently on the other leg. Sounds like this is not the first injury to happen while getting up, I just hadn't seen it until now.

Both legs stayed in. Which was even more weird. Getting the binding off of the broken leg was one of the worse I've ever done, especially while floating in the lake.

My wife works with a gal who just shattered her femur diving off her diving board...... just a 6' spring board that is like 2' over the surface of the pool.
Come to find out she had run a marathon like a week prior & had been involved in a yard sale where 4 or 5 runners went down together. It was bad enough that she didn't continue the run, but didn't think it was so bad that she went to the hospital for x-rays.

Thats it, no more wakeboarding for anyone..

^^^That may be the worst bruise I have ever seen!

Whoa, that leg looks dead.

I remember this story because the guy has my same name (RIP BRO).

Wakeskate->FemurBrake->BlodClot->Death

http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/65919/104396.html