How hero Cronk crashed through
THE Sydney Roosters’ doctor has revealed Cooper Cronk played the NRL grand final with a 15cm break in his scapula – an injury consistent with a carcrash victim.
Roosters medico Ameer Ibrahim has given an extraordinary account of the pain Cronk endured to inspire Sydney’s 21-6 premiership defeat of Melbourne .
Dr Ibrahim says Cronk’s effort is the greatest display of toughness he has seen in Australian sport in his 20 years as a sports medico.
Cronk was given two shots of anaesthetic before kick-off and again at halftime, when Roosters trainers cut his jersey off and injected into sites on his shoulder marked with ink.
Cronk was given almost the maximum dosage of pain-numbing anaesthetic. Any more could have triggered heart problems.
“It was the most heroic thing I’ve seen in 20 years – never seen anything like it,” Ibrahim said as Cronk stood metres away in the Roosters dressing room using his jersey as a sling.
“He would have been in 11 out of 10 pain coming here to the game.
“That fracture is what you see with motorbike accidents and car accidents. 11 out of 10 pain.
“It (the break) was the width of his scapula – the entire width, which would have been 15cm.
“We broke it downwn to first principles. What’s the worse that can happen and move backwards from there. Could we get rid of pain? Could we improve function?
“We could. After that it was OK. I knew he wasn’t going to do any more damage. It’s a broken bone but it’s not a weight-bearing bone.
“The other thing to note is that it was the maximum dose we could give him. Anything more and it starts
playing with your heart. If you give someone too much local anaesthetic their heart goes into a funny rhythm.
“We gave him 20ml before the match and 15ml at half time. The maximum we could give him was 45ml.”
Ibrahim initially gave Cronk no hope, but when he contacted another medico, Craig Harris, for assistance, the footballing miracle took shape.