Surgeon delivering cricket comebacks
Thirteen years after he repaired Shane Bond’s back, Grahame Inglis’ healing hands are world renowned in cricket, reports Mark Geenty.
Armed with 10cm of titanium cable and two screws, Christchurch orthopedic surgeon Grahame Inglis takes just over an hour to repair a cricketer’s fractured spine.
He’s been doing it since 2004 when Inglis’ steady hands helped to extend a broken Shane Bond’s international career by six years.
Inglis’ success rate is remarkable: Black Caps Matt Henry, Hamish Bennett and Andrew Ellis all returned to international cricket after the operation, and allrounder Corey Anderson was the latest wheeled out of theatre with a smile last month.
Such is Inglis’ reputation that even the Australians are sold. Cricket Australia bypassed their highly skilled compatriots, choosing to send fast bowler James Pattinson to Christchurch in coming weeks for the same procedure to try to avert early retirement at 27.
For despairing cricketers with recurring back stress fractures, Inglis is effectively doorman at the Last Chance Saloon.
‘‘We basically repair the fracture and we do it with a minimalistic approach that doesn’t seem to upset the rhythm of these topline fast bowlers,’’ he said.
‘‘The success rate is very good. It’s a relatively straightforward procedure with a predictably good outcome.’’
Inglis, 67, is semi-retired but still works at Burwood Hospital’s renowned spinal unit. He was New Zealand Cricket’s orthopaedic surgeon for years before handing the scalpel to Rowan Schouten, whom he assisted with Anderson’s surgery and will do the same with Pattinson.
The procedure takes between one hour and 90 minutes and is focused on the fifth lumbar vertebra (L5) where most bowlers’ stress fractures occur.
‘‘We clean out the fracture and harvest bone grafts from the pelvis. Then we use two screws and a bit of titanium cable and perform a tension band-type operation across the arch of L5. It compresses and stabilises the fracture.
‘‘The key is, one, that we get the fracture to heal, and two, we don’t disrupt the paraspinal muscles so you don’t lose any of that power.’’
As Bennett described it in 2014: ‘‘It just entailed removing a stress fracture, going down to Bunnings and putting in about three screws and some titanium wire just to hold the back together, and get some bone out of the hip and put it into the back.’’ Simple, really. He adapted the procedure for athletes after a six-month fellowship in the 1980s in Edinburgh, where a surgeon named Jimmy Scott was using wire to repair vertebra.
Inglis has operated high jumpers, javelin throwers and swimmers, all of whom on are susceptible to stress fractures. It doesn’t get much tougher on the back than fast bowling, and Inglis became Bond’s saviour after he broke down on the 2004 tour of England. Twice in the previous 15 months Bond completed the laborious six-month rehab from a stress fracture.
Said Bond, now England’s bowling coach in Australia: ‘‘He’d never done it on a cricketer and he talked to me about not bowling quick again, and I said ‘I don’t have a career anyway, this is the last resort’.’’
Post-surgery, Bond said it felt like a 100kg weight on his spine, the pain was agonising and he couldn’t bend for 3-4 days. But it soon eased and his back was rock solid.
‘‘It was late July and it took six weeks before I started going for walks and doing stuff in the pool and by November I was bowling again. The first Saturday after Christmas I played my first club game and bowled 10 overs.
‘‘When I got back to first-class cricket it took me a game and a half before I decided I could really up the intensity and then I knew – I could still bowl as quick as I used to.’’
Inglis insists it’s no bionic spine, and the surgery only restores the vertebra to its former strength.
He’s not keen to talk up a reputation as a miracle worker as he prepares to welcome Pattinson, his highest-profile patient. ‘‘In my opinion he’s on the margin and it’s a lastditch attempt to try and keep him bowling.’’
Still, given Inglis’ track record you wouldn’t bet against him and Schouten sending one more satisfied customer back to the bowling crease, wire, screws and all.