NY Yankees all-star short stop, Derek Jeter, fractured his left ankle during Saturday night’s game against the Detroit Tigers.
The injury occurred in the 12th inning as Jeter was fielding a ground ball. Jeter caught the ball, rolled over and landed awkwardly on his ankle.
He immediately had x-rays taken, but doctors couldn’t initially determine the extent of the injury. Yesterday he had a CT scan and an MRI that revealed a fractured ankle. Jeter will now travel to North Carolina to see Robert Anderson – a foot & ankle surgeon who specializes in treating injured athletes.
Watch video of the injury below:
Dr. Silverman Comments
The replay of Jeter’s injury is pretty boring. It doesn’t even look like he injured anything. Anyone who doesn’t know his injury history would say, “what could he have hurt?” But, it’s the history that tells the real story.
Jeter has injured his ankle a number of times this year including a bone bruise in September. Ankle sprains (inversion or rolling injuries) can cause Osteochondral fractures of the Talus (the smallest bone in our body that transmits all the body weight).
Here’s what I suspect happened: when he injured his ankle, he had a non-displaced fracture of the talus. A small area (probably less than 1 cm sq) cracked. His ankle hasn’t been healthy since then as the fracture never healed and the ankle has remained unstable. Usually, the bone in this area will die as it loses its blood supply and is unstable.
When he was falling over he compressed the talus and displaced that piece of broken and dead bone (the OCD).
Lots of people try to heal OCDs non-surgically. However, with this kind of recurrent ankle instability, it makes little sense. Jeter needs this fracture treated surgically.
If he was my patient, I would excise a small lesion arthroscopically and bone graft it. Results from this surgery are 85-88% successful (and the surgery needs to be repeated). That said, this is a tough injury to treat. Jeter will need to take it easy for a while if he wants to be back at the top of his game as quickly as possible.
Related Sources:
espn.go.com
