Penguin healthy after Tommy John-like surgery
Eric Fehr pulled off the wrap covering his left arm to reveal the scar across his elbow. Plenty of hockey players have had elbow surgery, but this scar was different.
Fehr had torn all the ligaments so severely that one doctor recommended he have a form of Tommy John surgery, a procedure usually reserved for baseball pitchers.
“As far as I know it’s never been done in the NHL,” Fehr said Saturday before making his season debut for the Pittsburgh Penguins. “None of the elbow doctors I’ve talked to have seen it before. Talking to the doctors, they think that’s a good thing because (a tear is) probably not going to happen again.”
Fehr’s elbow is as good as new, if not better, after Dr. Shawn O’Driscoll at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., repaired the lateral collateral ligament. The official Tommy John surgery involves the replacement of the ulnar collateral ligament with a tendon from elsewhere in the body. Fehr’s came from a cadaver.
“It was either that or take it from a hamstring or something, and I didn’t want to do that,” he said. “I didn’t want to touch anything else. We used cadaver ligaments and put brand-new ligaments in there.”
Fehr, whose injury happened last season, had a goal and an assist against the Toronto Maple Leafs in his first game since May 13, when he was in the playoffs with the Washington Capitals. All the while, he wore a protective elbow pad similar to the one worn by NFL star J.J. Watt to keep going.
Fehr saw one specialist who believed he had some damage that wouldn’t require surgery. Washington Nationals medical director Wiemi Douoguih eventually diagnosed an LCL tear and surgery. The injury got progressively worse, to the point Fehr saw the renowned Dr. James Andrews, who sent him to the Mayo Clinic for O’Driscoll to take a look.
“As soon as he saw it, he knew immediately what it was and recommended that I got it done,” said Fehr, 30, who’s from Winkler, Man.
Fehr had surgery June 3.