Cowboys on the mend after suffering injuries at NFR
The Wrangler National Finals Rodeo presented by Teton Ridge is a 10day marathon that takes every ounce of strength a cowboy has to finish the fight.
Unfortunately, during those 10 rounds of competition injuries tend to happen and a few cowboys were dinged up at the conclusion of this year’s event in Las Vegas. A handful of those injuries will force contestants to miss time headed into the winter stretch of the 2023 ProRodeo season.
Bull rider, Reid Oftedahl, who was injured during Round 2 of the NFR aboard Rafter H Rodeo Livestock’s Under the Influence, continues to improve.
Oftedahl, suffered head and neck injuries during the ride and was admitted to the ICU at UMC Trauma Center on Dec. 2 in Las Vegas.
He was diagnosed with a Grade 3 Diffuse Axonal Injury and also suffered a C7 cervical vertebrae fracture in his neck.
He spent 13 days in the hospital in Las Vegas before he was discharged from UMC on Dec. 15 and transported to an inpatient rehab facility in Mesa, Ariz. On Christmas Eve, he was discharged from the rehab facility and able to spend the holidays with his wife and kids.
“I’m still in Arizona at my in-laws, they have a place down here southeast of Phoenix,” said Oftedahl, 29. “I am definitely improving, slowly but surely.”
Oftedahl has started outpatient therapy at Advanced Neurologic Rehab now, where he says he will continue therapy for the next 4-6 weeks.
“I am going to rehab four days a week right now,” he said. “As of right now, I have an hour of physical therapy and an hour of speech therapy.”
He plans to take his recovery one day at a time.
“Who knows what this year will hold for me. They say I have to test out of everything to make sure I’m alright,” Oftedahl said. “I’ll probably just end up taking the year off.”
Eight-time NFR qualifier Orin Larsen was forced to miss the final six rounds of the Finals after breaking his right thumb during his Round 3 bareback ride on Legends Rodeo Stock’s Illegal Smile.
Larsen said the injury required surgery to repair, just days after the NFR concluded in December.
“I went down to Austin to get surgery done on the Monday following the NFR and the surgery went really well,” said Larsen, 31. “I was put in a cast right after that and I get it taken off on the 12th.”
He said the recovery period will extend a handful of months into the new season. He plans to begin rehab once his cast is removed with his sights set on returning to the rodeo arena in the spring.
“I’ll start therapy and rehab in two to three weeks,” he said. “I am going to listen closely to the doctors and Justin Sportsmedicine team throughout this whole deal. They know a lot more about this then I do. I’m hopeful that I’ll be ready to go by the beginning of March and get to ride in Houston.”
He believes there can be a silver lining when injuries like this happen, it may just take a while to realize what that is.
“No matter what kind of hardship you have as far as injuries go, there’s always a silver lining,” Larsen said. “Sometimes you don’t know what the silver lining is until you get back on the road and have time to reflect on it. I know this is a blessing in disguise and we are just going to move forward with it.”
It was also an injury riddled NFR for bull rider JR Stratford, who was making his Wrangler National Finals Rodeo debut. Stratford broke his left ankle during Round 4, when he failed to make the whistle aboard Stace Smith Pro Rodeos’ Con Air. He suffered a break to both his tibia and fibula.
“They decided to let my ankle heal as is after the break,” said Stratford, 20. “I was in a cast for four weeks and now a walking boot. I have a couple more weeks of that before they want me to put any weight on it.”