Czekaj on his horror injury and fighting back
THE screams were heard from the press box high up in the stands at Suncorp Stadium.
Due to the close proximity of a pitchside television microphone, the crack was heard around the world.
That noise was Chris Czekaj’s right femur – one of the strongest bones in the human body – breaking in five places as he suffered a spiral fracture.
“Take a stick and twist it to break it, it would be all fragmented with bits hanging off it, that’s a spiral fracture,” he explains to Wales on Sunday.
“So yeah, it wasn’t the best.”
The sound accompanied by Czekaj’s painful cries left the severity of the injury lost on nobody.
Mercilessly, replays of the incident were shown on the big screens inside the stadium and on television.
“You don’t need to see that any more times thanks, Mr Video Man,” instructed the Australian commentator
entiments everyone watching on that day agreed with.
“I wouldn’t really call it pain,” recalls Czekaj. “It was more of a numbness.
“I was in shock. I obviously realised something bad had happened, but I couldn’t describe the pain at all really.”
It was June 2007 and Wales were on a summer tour of Australia with the Rugby World Cup in France looming a few months later.
Czekaj, aged 21, was making his way in professional rugby and earning his sixth cap for Wales, having impressed for the Cardiff Blues that season.
A sharp outside-back with size to go with it, Czekaj was earmarked by the great Jonah Lomu – whom he’d played with during the All Black great’s short stint in the Welsh capital – as a young man with a big future. High praise indeed.
He’d just played in his first Six Nations and his career was on an exciting trajectory.
“I’d been playing well for the Blues, then had a couple of games in that Six Nations and was finding my feet at that level,” he remembers.
“I played well in the first game of that tour in Australia and there was a World Cup just around the corner.
“It was a really exciting time in my career.
“I was only 21. It was the end of my second season as a professional rugby player, but the aim was to make that World Cup squad.
“Things were looking up, but then...” In the 22nd minute of the second Test against Australia in Brisbane, Czekaj saw some space down the short side.
He picked the ball up from the back of a ruck and went for the gap. It closed quicker than expected as Aussie hooker Stephen Moore jammed in to make the tackle.
“It was a nothing tackle really, but I fell awkwardly and then I just felt a snap and I heard it too.
“Straight away I knew it was bad,” says Czekaj.
A number of shrill blasts of the whistle from referee Paul Honiss brought play to an immediate halt as veteran Wales team physio Mark Davies rushed to his player’s aid.
Czekaj received on-field treatment for a number of minutes before being loaded onto a stretcher with captain Gareth Thomas lingering around the scene to offer his support.
“They had to straighten my leg. That bit was scary,” he recalls.
“The physio told me he was going to do it and then he just did it straight away. There was no waiting around.
“I was stretchered off and taken into the physio room.”
Czekaj’s girlfriend Kat, now his wife, was at his parents’ house back in Wales as the family all gathered to watch the game.
“One of the doctors grabbed my phone and asked who to call,” he continues. I think they rang my girlfriend or my mum. They were all sat at home together watching.
“My mum later described how it felt in the room when that happened. It was probably worse for them because they’re on the other side of the world and can’t do anything to help.
“They were contacted quickly, but it wasn’t straight away so they were left to wonder what was going on.”
From there, Czekaj was put in the back of an ambulance and taken to a local hospital where further assessments could be made.
A painful series of x-rays, which required his body to be manipulated into different positions, revealed the extent of the damage.
A common misconception about the incident is that he damaged his knee, but that’s not the case. The ligaments in his right knee were left completely intact.
It was just the femur that needed attention. The surgical repair required to treat a spiral fracture is fraught with potential complications, but Czekaj’s was a success.
“They made an incision at the top of my leg, took all the bone marrow out and put the rod straight through the middle of the bone,” he explains.
“A pin was put in the middle and they put the rod in to secure it in place. There was a screw at the top and a couple at the bottom to hold it there.
“The surgeon told me he hadn’t seen many injuries like this and the only time he had was as a result of motorcycle accidents.
“That’s not great to hear.”
Full of youthful optimism, the winger’s attention quickly turned to his rehabilitation and return to the playing field.
The Rugby World Cup that was on the horizon was clearly out of the pictur, e but surely he hadn’t laced his boots up for the final time?
Upon asking the question, he was served a dose of reality.
“I obviously asked: ‘Am I going to be able to play again? When can I play again?’” he says.
“The surgeon didn’t really answer me, he just said: ‘We want to get you back walking and being able to run around with your kids’.
“That hit me quite hard.
“But I was so young, I was just adamant that this was not going to stop me playing again.
“That got me through. At the time I didn’t have any qualifications, it was rugby or nothing at that point in my life.”
The Welsh Rugby Union had immediately flown Czekaj’s girlfriend out to Australia to provide support and he was grounded in the country for a further two weeks after spending the first seven days of recovery in hospital.
One of the doctors who’d tended to him at Suncorp, a woman named Lisa Smith, kindly offered the use of a holiday home in the idyllic coastal area of Noosa until he was fit to fly home.
“I guess we had some kind of holiday out of it,” he laughs. “We have the memories as well, we’ll never forget our time out there.
“She [Lisa] helped out a lot and looked after us. My wife has been back over to visit since, I haven’t managed to go, but I want to. We keep in touch.”
What followed was a 14-month rehabilitation process, including regular X-rays to ensure the bone was healing correctly.
Following the advice of doctors and physiotherapists, remarkably, he was fit to begin the 2008/09 season.
His first game back was against a Cardiff Blues Premiership Select XV, a team that included a young Leigh Halfpenny, at Sardis Road.
“There were nerves, having been out for so long, but I was excited,” he says.
“I’d only done one bit of full contact, on the Thursday before the game on the pads with Dan Baugh, and that was it.
“Everything else was building it up, running and the pre-season work we were doing.
“It was nerve-wracking and it was the same for my family who were there watching. It was probably worse for them.”
A 30-minute test off the bench was passed and Czekaj would go to represent the Blues over 140 times and received what was, by his own admission, a shock call-up to the Wales squad for the 2009 summer tour to America and Canada.
He got two further caps in the 2010 autumn series, against Australia and South Africa, but that would be his final involvement with Wales, earning nine caps in total.
It’s difficult not to ponder how things might have gone in a parallel universe, where the injury never happened.
“The injury definitely had an impact on the rest of my career,” he admits.
“I’m not saying I would have been nailed on for the World Cup in 2007, but I was aiming for it and my chances would have been decent after having a good few games in Australia.
“In terms of my pace, I think I got most of it back after the injury, but it didn’t last as long as it would have done if I hadn’t have been injured.
“It definitely had an effect, but then I still managed to have a full career after it, so I count myself lucky in that regard.
“To be told that I may not play rugby again, but then come back in just over a year and still go on and play more games for the Blues and get more caps. I’m proud of that.”
Despite the severity of his leg break, it doesn’t rank as the worst injury of his career.
“There is no comparison,” he insists. Czekaj left the Blues to join Colomiers in the French second division in 2014. In his second game for his new club, he suffered a concussion and was left unconscious for 20 minutes.
He suffered a seizure as a result of the blow to the head and stopped breathing. He was intubated by concerned medics and later stabilised in hospital.
The effects of the grade three concussion lingered and altered his personality for a period of time, making him more agitated.
“It’s your head at the end of the day. If something happens to that, nothing else really matters, does it?” he points out.
“That was a difficult time, for my family as well.
“I’ve put them through a lot in my career.”
After a difficult stint at Colomiers, he had an enjoyable two years at Bedford Blues in the English Championship before returning to Wales, linking up with Merthyr RFC in the Welsh Premiership. He has also taken up a role as a WRU hub officer and has ambitions of moving into coaching.
With the current season now abruptly ended due to the coronavirus pandemic, 34-year-old Czekaj is yet to decide if he’ll continue playing next year, though he insists that, if he does, it will be his final season in the game.
Now, then, seems like a good time to reflect.
“I feel privileged to have played the game as long as I have,” he says.
“I wouldn’t say I’m injury prone – I know players who have had way more injuries than me – but I have had my fair share.
“That said, I’ve always come back. “I’m proud of what I’ve done and what I’ve come back from.”
There can be few who begrudge him that.