Friday, December 10, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Riding Out The Pain

Injured rodeo competitors count on getting back to livelihood quickly

National Finals Rodeo bull rider Fred Boettcher, who suffered a concussion and reaggravated a shoulder separation a week ago, is re-examined Monday by Dr. Tandy Freeman in a trailer stationed at the Gold Coast. Photo by John Gurzinski. Bull rider Fred Boettcher's separated shoulder receives an ultrasound treatment daily from athletic trainer Devin Dice. Photo by John Gurzinski. Click image for enlargement. Graphic by Mike Johnson. Bull rider Fred Boettcher gets tossed off Lucky Strike on Tuesday. Boettcher won Wednesday's competition. Photo by John Locher. Every day of the National Finals Rodeo bull rider Fred Boettcher ices down a shoulder separation and a torn bicep while receiving neuromuscular electrical stimulation for his shoulder. Photo by John Gurzinski. Bull rider Fred Boettcher, 29, grimaces as Dr. Tandy Freeman of the Justin Sportsmedicine Team examines his separated shoulder Monday in a trailer at the Gold Coast. Photo by John Gurzinski. Dr. Pat Evans, the 75-year-old co-founder of the Justin Sportsmedicine Team, receives a playful massage Saturday from athletic trainer Dee Cornell in the training room at the Thomas & Mack Center. Photo by John Locher. Bull rider Myron Duarte drinks Pepsi to wash down anti-inflammatory medication for his injured knee in the training room Tuesday at the Thomas & Mack Center. Photo by John Locher.

The bull raging beneath Fred Boettcher bucked out of the chute and suddenly spun left, twisting the rider backward and to the right.

When the bull bucked again, the cowboy's right leg hit the ground as he started to fall. But his gloved left hand was stuck in the rigging.

The bull whipped his head around to see what was hanging from his right side.

The 160-pound Boettcher and the 1,500-pound bull stared at each other.

And then the rampaging bull delivered a head butt that saw the tip of its left horn narrowly miss piercing Boettcher's right eye, sliding by the side of his head.

The force of the blow broke Boettcher's hand free from the rope, hammered his head back into the dirt and ripped apart his healing but still separated right shoulder.

The capacity crowd of nearly 18,000 at the Thomas & Mack Center for the first night of action at the National Finals Rodeo -- the Super Bowl of rodeos that ends Sunday -- roared as the stunned rodeo star first crawled, and then stumbled, away from a stomping.

What has been billed as "the most dangerous eight seconds in sports" had more than lived up to its billing.

Boettcher, a Wisconsin native, had been atop his bull for only five seconds, three short of what is needed for a legal ride.

Minutes later in a training room a few steps from the arena, the 29-year-old Boettcher was undergoing a neurological exam by Dr. Tandy Freeman, part of the Justin Sportsmedicine Team, which travels to more than 125 Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association events each year.

Studying Boettcher's eyes, Freeman noted that they could follow a light to the right, but then instead of stopping, would "bounce back a little bit, sort of like dribbling a basketball."

And when Freeman asked Boettcher, who had ice bags on his right shoulder and left elbow, to list the months of the year backward, he got to September but then couldn't come up with August, guessing June.

"You've got a concussion again, Fred," Freeman said.

Before the late John Justin, owner of the boot company that bears his family's name, agreed 25 years ago to underwrite a traveling medical team that would give free on-site treatment to rodeo athletes, treatment of rodeo athletes wasn't particularly sophisticated.

"We just took two aspirin and drank a six pack of beer when we got hurt," retired rodeo star Gary McDaniel said. "And if the pain wouldn't go away, we doubled up on the beer."

McDaniel, a Texas rancher who helps set the order for bulls and bucking horses in the NFR, isn't exaggerating, said Dr. Pat Evans, who, with athletic trainer Don Andrews, suggested to Justin that rodeo athletes needed professional medical care at events.

"The rodeo athlete's ability to deal with pain is unlike anything else in professional sports," said Evans, who is the former team physician for both the Dallas Cowboys and the Dallas Mavericks. "They continue to perform with injuries that would keep most athletes out for weeks or months. When you have to win money in order to pay the bills, you do what you have to do."

Boettcher proved that point Wednesday.

Wearing a helmet to protect against further head injury and still suffering from a separated shoulder that had been treated with ice and ultrasound, Boettcher won the bull riding round for the night.

"I have to take my hat off to the Justin Sportsmedicine guys," he said after winning. "They know I'm going to ride every night, and they get me ready."

At each rodeo stop, the 16 member Justin medical team -- which consists of two doctors, 12 athletic trainers and two administrators -- works with volunteer physicians and other volunteer medical personnel.

Dr. Tony Serfustini and Dr. Terry Lewis, both connected to the University Medical Center Trauma Center, long have worked for free to help the athletes. So has MGM Grand massage therapist Jason Roe.

"I'll never forget how Brent Thurman suffered those head injuries from the bull here in '94 that got him killed," Lewis said. "I wish there was more we could have done for him at UMC."

With rodeo athletes' chance of injury, it's a good thing their pain threshold is extraordinary.

Research has found that the rodeo participants in roughstock events -- saddle bronc, bareback and bull riding -- are about twice as likely as football players to suffer injury.

"Football players stay out for weeks or months with injuries that we compete with," said bull rider Myron Duarte after Freeman used a syringe last weekend to remove blood from his swollen knee. "Football players are pussies."

Duarte reaggravated a right knee injury Wednesday night that he had ridden with for a year and has decided to undergo surgery for a torn anterior cruciate ligament. He's out of the NFR.

A study by the Justin Sportsmedicine Team from 1981 through 2000 found that the group evaluated 62,961 PRCA rodeo athletes and treated 8,797.

Head and face injuries accounted for 14 percent of all injuries in the study. Concussions made up almost half of all major injuries.

Other main trauma areas involved the knee, 12 percent of injuries; the shoulder, 11 percent; and the lumbar spine, 8 percent.

Bull riding has always accounted for the most rodeo injuries, but it jumped from 41 percent of injuries in the '80s to 51 percent between 1996 and 2000.

"They are genetically engineering the bulls stronger than ever," Duarte said.

The Justin study listed 14 fatalities during rodeo events over the past 20 years.

Justin medical team co-founder Andrews said the team's ability to keep a rodeo athlete healthy enough to participate is critical when you consider the limits of insurance.

The basic insurance policy that comes with a rodeo athlete's membership in the PRCA has a $1,000 deductible.

Because Justin underwrites the expenses of the medical team that bears its name, the rodeo athletes don't have to pay for treatments that include tapings, icings, X-rays, electronic muscle stimulation, ultrasound, pain medications, and neurological and orthopedic exams by physicians.

Without the Justin team on site, the athletes would have to shell out hundreds of dollars each day for such treatment to either doctors or hospitals. Or forgo the treatment.

"Because of Justin, we're able to keep going," Boettcher said. "We couldn't afford to go to the doctor every day."

For injuries that the Justin team cannot treat, the insurance carrier pays 70 percent of a claim up to $12,500 by a rodeo athlete.

PRCA membership gives rodeo athletes a catastrophic policy that covers claims between $50,000 and $250,000, with the carrier picking up 80 percent of the cost.

A claim between $12,500 and $50,000, however, finds the athlete on his own, Andrews said.

"Justin also has a crisis fund to help cowboys through tough times," Andrews said.

Tom Feller, director of event marketing for Justin Brand Inc., said his company contributes more than $1 million to the health care and well-being of rodeo athletes through its sports medicine team and crisis fund.

"Mr. Justin wanted to give back to the rodeo athletes who had supported his company," Feller said.

Though on-site medical care for rodeo athletes might be more sophisticated today, that doesn't mean the athletes do what the medical establishment wants them to do.

The American Academy of Neurology, for instance, recommends that anyone who suffers even a momentary loss of consciousness wait a week before returning to competition.

"I could never do that," said Boettcher as he sat Sunday in a Justin Sportsmedicine trailer parked at the Gold Coast. "I'd never make any money that way."

Boettcher, who has made about $140,000 this year but spent half that on travel expenses, has been knocked out a dozen times and suffered a dozen other concussions.

"Having it tough is all relative," Boettcher said. "My brother Jesse is an Airborne ranger that served in Iraq. And those were my friends from Rice Lake, Wisconsin, that got shot and killed by that immigrant from Southeast Asia when they were out hunting."

For some events, including the NFR, Justin doctors can hold out athletes if they are convinced irreparable harm could be done.

Dr. Evans told Boettcher he had to wear a helmet if he wanted to continue riding in the finals in Las Vegas.

"He was just knocked out three weeks ago in Dallas," said the 75-year-old Evans, spitting tobacco juice into a wastebasket. "So we have to be careful. I think more riders will wear helmets if they can make them look Western."

Dr. Freeman said that people must remember that medical treatment for cowboys has to be different than for the man on the street.

"We're talking about their livelihood," he said. "What we try to be sure of is that they don't do something that could end up ruining their lives or becoming far worse."

Nothing better illustrates how the Justin medical team and a rodeo rider work together than the handling of saddle bronc rider Shaun Stroh.

Early in the rodeo, he broke bones in his lower back. But X-rays taken immediately in the arena's training room by radiology technician Elias Reyes, another Las Vegas volunteer, showed no chance of paralysis existed if he continued to rodeo.

"It's going to hurt you even to breathe, but if you can take it, it won't do you any permanent damage," Freeman told Stroh.

"Thanks, doc," Stroh replied. "I'm glad it's nothing serious."

Stroh, who has iced the injury, taken Tylenol and received electronic stimulation to promote healing, bucked his saddle bronc to a second place Wednesday.

"It hurts a little," is all the Montana resident said of his injury.

Justin athletic trainer Dee Cornell said Stroh is typical.

"What makes our work so gratifying is that they are so motivated to get back into action," she said. "You want to do everything you can to get them back into action."

Wednesday, bareback rider Larry Sandvick stopped in the medical trailer by the Gold Coast to have athletic trainer Devin Dice work on his left shoulder.

Sandvick's right wrist is so dislocated that a large knot exists between his hand and forearm.

"It used to burn like a hot iron, and I could have an operation on it, but it would be just for looks. It feels OK now," he said. "Today, I got to do something for this shoulder that that damn horse pulled out."

Sandvick has had two shoulder surgeries because they kept dislocating.

"I got tired of having to put them back in place, " he said. "They'd even pop out while I was sleeping."

Freeman, a nationally renowned orthopedist who has run in 100-mile races, schedules surgery for riders. Either he does the surgery or he finds another specialist.

He plans on having bull rider Cody Hancock, who couldn't ride anymore after he reaggravated torn muscles in his groin area last weekend, operated on by a Philadelphia physician who specializes in tying ripped muscles together in the pelvic area.

"I just hope it works," said Hancock, a former world champion who rode for two days with a groin area so bruised that he almost couldn't walk to the chute.

Boettcher, a nine-year veteran of professional rodeo, hopes the dream he has had since he was 5 years old, of being a world champion, comes true. It began after his father held rodeos on their Wisconsin farm.

"I've got metal plates around my one eye, I've had a hundred stitches in my face and shoulder separations and concussions, ripped my right bicep off my right arm and fractured all the bones in my feet, but it's worth it to go after your dream," he said.

"All I have to do is really learn how to dance with a bull. You just have to remember that he's definitely leading and you have to follow. You can't get behind at all. If you keep in time with him, you're all right. I just wish it wasn't such a hard dance to learn."