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Buffalo Sabres

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #1 Clint Malarchuk

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #1]

There’s no doubt that hockey is a brutal sport where anything can happen and blood on the ice is often more common than goals in the net. But there was nothing common about a March 22, 1989 game between the Blues and the Sabres. Buffalo goalie Clint Malarchuk was involved in the most nightmarish accident in the history of hockey as the Blues’ Steve Tuttle collided with Malarchuk at the goal and his skate accidentally severed the interior carotid artery of the goalie. Instantly, there was a massive pool of blood collecting on the ice beneath him and with every pump of his heart more blood would spurt from his gash.

I thought I was dying then, I really did. I thought I didn’t have long to live.” Malarchuk said. “All I wanted to do was get off the ice. My mother was watching the game on TV, and I didn’t want her to see me die.

And she very easily could have seen just that, but the doctors at Buffalo General Hospital didn’t let that happen as they repaired his severed jugular vein and he was amazingly released the next afternoon.

I didn’t go into any real shock. I think maybe if I had any shock, it was this morning,” Malarchuk told the press after being released. “I’m not going off on a stretcher, I never will. The day I go off on a stretcher, they’re going to have to make funeral arrangements. I’m proud of that fact that I got off the ice on my own power.

Now, that’s one tough S.O.B. Dwyane Wade could learn a lot from Mr. Malarchuk.

And here’s the actual play call as it happened live with color commentator Mike Robitaille and longtime voice of the Sabres Ted Darling behind the mics.

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Categories
Washington Redskins

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #2 Joe Theismann (plus BONUS injury!)

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #2]

If you haven’t seen the Joe Theismann injury by now, then you must have been living under a rock for the past 22 years. After all, it is the granddaddy of all of sports injuries and gets referenced after almost every major leg injury in sports to this day.

Who can forget seeing Lawrence Taylor snap Theismann’s leg during the Redskins/Giants Monday Night Football game back in 1985? It was a flea-flicker that went horribly wrong and ended with Taylor rolling up on Theismann and bending his leg backwards, not to mention his body, which resulted in a broken tibia and fibula. Theismann’s career was over before LT even got up and started frantically signaling for the paramedics.

The play doesn’t look all that devastating from the original angle, but once the reverse angle was feed to the national audience it became obvious that this was single handedly the worst professional sports injury ever witnessed. And no matter how many times you’ve seen the clip over the past two decades, it never gets any easier to stomach. Ironically, many people experience the same nauseating feelings when they think of his color commentary on ESPN.

Now, if Theismann grabbed our No. 2 spot on the list of gruesome injuries, then this guy has to be considered No. 2a. We don’t know who this guy is or when or where this happened, but the second we saw it, we knew it deserved some lofty recognition. So, here’s to you Mr. Mixed Martial Arts guy; this injury is truly one of the nastiest bone snappings we’ve ever been sickened by.

If you want to find some humor in the situation, just check out the guy’s opponent when he snaps his leg. The guy starts jumping up and down like he just delivered a knockout punch. Dude, you won because his leg cracked; you didn’t do jack!

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College Basketball

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #3 Allan Ray

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #3]

During the 2006 Big East tournament, everyone in the arena and everyone at home were ready to see Villanova and Pittsburgh get it on inside Madison Square Garden. But what nobody saw coming was one of the nastiest and oddest injuries ever caught on camera.

During the beginning of the second half of the game, Nova’s Allan Ray and Pitt’s Carl Krauser both went after a loose ball and as Krauser reached out he appeared to have inadvertently poked Ray’s eyeball out of his skull. Ray lost vision in his eye briefly but would quickly bounce back from the stomach turning injury to play in the team’s opening game of the NCAA Tournament.

Turns out that the injury wasn’t nearly as bad as it appeared on TV, or in person for that matter, as doctors revealed that the eye had not been dislodged from its socket, but, instead the eyelid had been pushed behind the eyeball which gave the appearance that it had popped out. The diagnosis was simply a soft-tissue injury.

Still, while it turned out to be a minor ordeal, to the millions who were watching that game live, it was just like watching a scene from a Warner Bros. cartoon come to life. Only this scene made them want to puke.

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Categories
Boxing

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #4 Evander Holyfield

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #4]

Mike Tyson made was known for his brutal style and vicious power that made first round knockouts commonplace at one of his bouts. Iron Mike could handle his business with anyone who wanted to step inside the ropes with him, which is what made the infamous ear chomp of Evander Holyfield so bizarre. But hey, that’s what made Mike, Mike. He might knock your lights out or he might bite your ear off, nobody knew what to expect.

However, it’s safe to say that nobody expected Tyson to pull out his best Hannibal impersonation on June 28, 1997 when he took on Holyfield in front of a sold out crowd at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. But once it happened, those who weren’t either totally shocked or disgusted, began to riot and the madness spilled out of the arena and into the Vegas streets. Holyfield wasn’t seriously injured but his ears will never look the same after losing a giant chunk of flesh to Tyson’s choppers.

Tyson was suspended from boxing for the biting incident, but that didn’t stop the Tyson roller coaster from operating. But narrowing down Tyson’s whacky behavior would require an entire Top 10 list of its very own.

Back to #5 | Forward to #3

Categories
College Football

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #5 Willis McGahee

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #5]

In the 2003 national championship game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Miami Hurricanes, The U’s star running back Willis McGahee received a violent hit from Will Allen that bent his leg in the exact opposite direction from how it’s designed to bend. Nobody would have been surprised if the collision ended the young stud’s career, but he’s managed to return from the torn ligaments and has even made his way onto a winning Baltimore ball club after suffering in the Buffalo black hole for the past three years.

But, nobody was less impressed by the horrific accident than play-by-play man Keith Jackson who barely managed to spit out a “yep” after seeing McGahee’s knee get decimated. What, that wasn’t “Whoa, Nellie” worthy?

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Categories
LA Clippers

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #6 Shaun Livingston

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #6]

Our No. 7 injury showed you just how painful a dislocated elbow can be. Now just imagine the same thing happening to your knee. Actually you don’t have to imagine, because Shaun Livingston took all the guess work out of the equation and provided photographic evidence of the pain. But if you want to experience the full effect of the injury, you’ll have to throw in some torn ligaments for good measure.

That’s exactly what happened to the Clippers’ Livingston when he picked up a loose ball and took it the length of the court for a routine lay-up. However, the landing was anything but routine as his leg twisted up like a pretzel beneath him, ending the point guard’s season. Livingston’s knee was ripped to shreds as he tore the anterior cruciate ligament, posterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and lateral meniscus. Wow, now that’s an injury!

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Categories
College Basketball

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #7 Idong Ibok

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #7]

It was the first day of this year’s NCAA tournament and the entire country was sitting in front of their TV’s with brackets in hand as they drooled over the endless possibilities of Cinderella stories and last second heroics. But instead they got Idong Ibok flailing on the ground after dislocating his left elbow.

The accident happened when he tried to brace himself for a fall as Michigan State headed down court off a missed basket by Marquette.

It sounds painful enough but CBS went that extra mile and actually showed the television audience exactly what a dislocated elbow looks like. And it looks like a giant hole in your arm where an elbow used to be. At one point you can actually see him feeling around inside the dent, and by the screams he lets out, we’re guessing he does not like what he feels.

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Categories
Toronto Raptors

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #8 Jorge Garbajosa

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #8]

After trying to block a shot by Al Jefferson, Jorge Garbajosa landed awkwardly and his fibula snapped and spun his ankle out of place. It might not look that bad when you first see it, but Garbajosa’s shrieks of pain could be heard in the next county and Jefferson’s cringe upon seeing the mangled leg was proof that this was not a normal broken bone. In fact, the entire Raptors bench can be seen covering their eyes after the injury takes place.

Oh, man. I haven’t witnessed anything like that in person, ever,” Raptors swingman Morris Peterson said. “I just had to turn my head. A lot of guys did.

You would think that anybody’s career would be over after spinning their leg a full 90 degrees in the wrong direction but, amazingly, Garbajosa is expected to be sidelined for just six months after the horrific injury.

There was even a rumor floating around that Garbajosa wanted to remain awake during his operation so that he could watch the doctor perform his magic, but that turned out to be a joke. If that were true, however, the doctors might want to consider performing a lobotomy as well as the necessary ankle surgery.

Back to #9 | Forward to #7

Categories
General Sports

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #9 Javelin Judge

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #9]

This is an oldie, but it’s a goodie and if this doesn’t make you cringe then it’s simply from overexposure of the clip during the last few years. The accident happened at the Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway and the javelin reportedly ended up piercing the old dude’s hand.

From what we can tell, javelins are about six feet long and fly through the air at speeds around 70 mph. So, don’t let the fact that this got made into a commercial fool you into thinking it didn’t have the potential to be fatal. But don’t take our word for it, just ask Matthew Brobst.

Back to #10 | Forward to #8

Categories
Boxing

Top 10 Most Gruesome sports injuries: #10 Hasim Rahman

[Sportscolumn is running down the ten most gruesome sports injuries. Here’s #10.]


Back in 2003, Evander Holyfield beat on Hasim Rahman until this baseball sized knot developed over his left eye. Of course, in typical Holyfield fashion, the lump wasn’t brought about by a baragae of fists alone; no, Holyfield used a pair of head butts to help create the nasty bump. The fight would eventually be ended on the ring doctor’s recommendation at the 1:40 mark in the eighth round.

After the match, Rahman said that he should have expected the head butts from Holyfield and then he spit out one of the greatest quotes in sports history.

I have a cut in the middle of my forehead, and an extra head on my head.

Well, at least you walked out of the ring with your ears intact.

On to #9