BEARS Lagoon-Serpentine’s Nic Arthur knows that any time he steps foot onto a football field he risks injury – that’s just part and parcel of playing the game he loves.
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But he certainly didn’t anticipate he would be spending the next six weeks in a neck brace and forced to contemplate his footballing future when he took to the field against Calivil United last Saturday.
However, late in the third quarter in a similar contest to what he’s been involved in hundreds of times during his career at a stoppage, Arthur collided with Demons’ ruckman Chris Down, with his initial thought after the impact that he had suffered a broken left arm after it went numb.
With some feeling returning to his arm while on the bench Arthur later felt well enough to play out the final 10 minutes of the game, which is remarkable given what a trip to the Bendigo Hospital post-match revealed.
“I was getting some different feelings in my neck, so I went to the hospital after the game to get it checked out and thought it would be fairly straight forward… go in, get it checked out, get cleared, come home and maybe have a sore neck for a week or two,” Arthur said on Thursday.
“They put me into a neck brace, took me in for a CT scan and a few hours later told me there was a break in my vertebrae.”
After spending Saturday night in Bendigo Hospital Arthur was taken to the Austin Hospital in Melbourne for surgery on Sunday.
“After an MRI scan they discovered that it needed to be acted on immediately… I had ligament damage, a stuffed disc and broken verterbrae,” Arthur said.
“The damaged disc was taken out and replaced with a plastic one and the two vertebrae were fused together, and that all happened very quickly.”
Arthur – who has been one of the Bears’ most consistent players this year – spent two nights in the Austin Hospital before returning to his Huntly home on Tuesday.
They put me into a neck brace, took me in for a CT scan and a few hours later told me there was a break in my vertebrae
- Nick Arthur
“You know you’re at risk of injury every time you play footy… it’s part of the game, but you don’t expect something as extreme as a spinal injury,’’ Arthur said.
“But it was just a normal contest… we were both going for the footy and just one of those things that happens.”
The 26-year-old, who represented the Loddon Valley in inter-league earlier this year, has been told by his surgeon he will be in a neck brace for at least the next six weeks, and it will be at least eight weeks before he can contemplate returning to work as a carpenter.
“I guess you’ve got to try to look at it in a positive way and that it could have been a whole lot worse with permanent damage, but I should be able to go on with a fairly normal life once I get right,” Arthur said.
“As for footy, I haven’t come to any decision on that, but I’m contemplating not playing again given the risk.
“I’m usually pretty active, so it’s a bit of a different lifestyle at the moment.”
