Kats Goes Cowboy: A lesson in risk-taking and medical care

By John Katsilometes

Saturday, Dec. 11, 2010 | 7:38 p.m.

The dressing rooms at the National Finals Rodeo stretch along a thin hallway that cuts the undercarriage of the Thomas & Mack Center. They are marked accordingly, bull riders, bareback, steer wrestlers, bull fighters, like that.

One of these cozy rooms is reserved for the Justin Sports Medicine Center, and this hovel is one of the more compelling visits I will make during this year’s NFR.

Inside that room, I come upon Justin Sports Medicine Director Rick Foster, 52-year-old veteran of nearly 30 years of rodeos. Foster was reading the inked scrawl across the medical chart of bareback contestant D.V. Fennel, leaning back on a padded table and having his right bicep wrapped tightly in white medical tape.

There seems a limitless supply of this tape at the NFR, and the chutes and dressing rooms are often littered with the crumpled wads of the sticky stuff.

Seated near Foster and two members of his staff, awaiting evaluation, was bareback rider Ryan Gray. His NFR story speaks to the quick care the medical team provides at every Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association event, and also to the resiliency of these cowboys -- the contestants Foster and his team rightfully refers to as athletes.

Simply put, Gray is suffering from an injury, something more significant and even exotic than a bruised forearm.

It’s a lacerated liver.

“I’m pretty lucky, actually,” he says.

Lucky?

“The liver regenerates,” he explains. “I’ll be fine.”

Ah. Let us raise a shot of Pendleton Whisky -- the official whiskey of the NFR -- and toast organ regeneration.

Gray suffered this injury in what now seems like the Dark Ages of the NFR, on Dec. 3, during the second go-round when he was stomped by a momentarily klutzy horse named Golden Dream. A nightmarish ride ended as Gray was tossed to the dirt, and the equine, typically nimble enough to avoid stepping on a high mark or into a hole, came down hard on Gray’s back.

“I just slipped off the side,” Gray says. “I knew it was bad. I couldn’t catch my breath.” His first words to the medical team were “I got kicked!’

Gray has never before suffered such an injury, and this was serious. Life-threatening, even.

“If it had been a worse laceration, yes,” Foster says. “If another internal organ involved, it could have been a lot worse.”

Even by the time Gray was felled, the Justin team had a full night. Before each session, they usually see at least 30 athletes, making more than 100 treatments. Foster is aware of every existing condition among the 119 NFR athletes. They treat contusions, sprains and strains, typically, and they are serious, as these athletes are roughed up by one-ton bulls and 1,200-pound horses.

“These are not 300-pound men they are facing,” Foster says. “And, unlike traditional sports, they don’t have a week or several days between competitions. (At the NFR), they want to do it all again the next day.”

Ryan’s injury was unique and not “pre-existing.” The bareback star from Cheney, Wash., who entered the NFR as the top-rated contestant in the field, did not amble into the Thomas & Mack Center suffering from liver issues.

As he hit the dirt, the medical staff, led by Foster, knew only that he was experiencing breathing problems. But after a quick interview with the patient, they knew they needed to get him care, fast, and assisted Gray off the arena floor and into the Justin headquarters.

Gray was then taken to University Medical Center’s emergency room and admitted into that facility’s intensive care unit. He stayed until Saturday, was hospitalized until Tuesday, and was back signing autographs for fans by Wednesday.

The treating physician says Gray will undergo three to six months of recovery time before getting back on a horse, but Gray says six weeks, tops, is all the time he’ll need.

“I’ve been hurt before,” he says. “Injuries are part of our sport.”

Foster can only agree.

“It’s a contact sport,” he says. “You have two to three body parts affected, and these athletes require a lot of treatment.”

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at twitter.com/JohnnyKats.