It only takes one second.
Whether it’s a broken bone, a torn liga-ment, or a concussion, the average student athlete will face an injury at some point in their athletic career. For fourth-year Anastasia Bourka, it was a freak accident that put her varsity rugby season on hold.
Playing in her number eight position, Bourka was running the ball down the field on Sept. 13. Seconds later, a University of Ottawa defender made a “desperate tackle,” as Bourka describes it.
“I play over and over what happened and there’s nothing that I did wrong or she did wrong. It was just an accident,” she said.
Bourka smacked down on the pitch and did her best to keep playing. “I was in excruciating pain,” she said. “But I still managed to get the ball back because I wanted them to keep playing.”
All she could do was look to her teammates, who were trying to keep her calm. “I couldn’t calm myself down even enough to hear what the doctor was saying … I don’t think I’ve ever had such a traumatic injury before.”
An injury is every student athletes’ worst nightmare, and Bourka said she knew in her gut that hers was coming true when she heard the sound of a break.
After being rushed to the hospital that evening, it was confirmed she broke her fibula, the smaller bone in her shin, and tore a ligament on the inside of her ankle. Based on the severity of her injury, Bourka was prepped for surgery immediately.
The injury put a wrench in her plans to improve and make her fourth-year playing at Carleton one of her best.
“I think last year was my best off-season, I was the strongest and fittest I’ve ever been. Every step I took was powerful,” she said. Bourka’s athletic therapist Jen Patel has been working alongside her, ensuring that her recovery process keeps her on track for a final year of eligibility.
“My biggest thank you goes to athletic therapy. They really care about my health and support me,” she said.
Bourka isn’t the only Raven who has lost playing time this season. Second-year women’s basketball centre, Deanna Hinds, is also trying to understand how her world changed in a split second.
“It’s really a blur to me, but I pivoted, and it was one wrong move … I heard the pop and I knew right away it was the same ACL injury again,” Hinds said.
After the MRI results confirmed it to be true, Hinds has been doing everything to rehabilitate her knee.
“It was so devastating because I worked so hard the first time to really come back from the injury hoping it wasn’t going to impact my future. It’s such a long recovery,” Hinds said.
She explains she felt utter heartbreak knowing what an ACL injury entails having gone through it once before. Having experienced no pain before the game, it was a shock to her coach and her teammates, as well.
Originally, Hinds had the option of rehabbing her knee and playing through the season.
“It was only recently that I chose to go through with the surgery. I recently decided the strength training wasn’t going to be enough … I have to get a second surgery.”
Her surgery date has been set for Oct.10.
The dreaded ACL tear is not an un-common experience. Men’s soccer player, Scott Mazzotta tore his in August 2016 before his senior year in high school.
It took up until the one year anniversary of the surgery where Mazzotta no longer felt any pain.
“There’s a lot of nights alone at the gym and doing a lot of work by yourself, a lot of the recovery … as much as it was with other people, I’d say 75 per cent of it, I was doing either in my basement or at the gym,” Mazzotta said.
The gym for an injured athlete can be a sanctuary to gain confidence again, ac-
cording to the forward.
“Before you get back on the field or the ice, try and do more than what you were doing before you were injured in the gym,” said Mazzotta.
“When you’re pushing weights, you’re running faster on the treadmill, you’re getting your balance back,” he said.
Now in his third year, Mazzotta says this injury has made him stronger and forced him to see the sport he loved from a new perspective.
“It took me out of the mindset where, ‘OK, we’re going to Toronto to have some
fun, so I need to go to the gym tonight to recover for tomorrow,’” Mazzotta said.
“I was also able to see that all of what I have right now could be taken away, so it made me more thankful and it made me have a little more respect for playing soccer.”
Both Mazzotta and Hinds are appreciative of the rehabilitative resources they can access at Carleton being varsity athletes.
“At Carleton I have access to so many resources … the phone numbers of trainers and physiotherapists that will speed up my recovery,” Hinds said.
However, the journey to full fitness can come with other obstacles that therapists
can’t necessarily make go away.
Both Bourka and Hinds explained being injured can also have a big impact on the academic side of university.
“In university, missing a week of school is the equivalent of missing a month,” Bourka said.
Hinds is preparing herself for the weeks ahead knowing she may inevitably fall behind in her studies.
“I’m trying to get deferrals for my assignments and my midterms. But there are some teachers that are all for that, and others that don’t care as much,” she said.
“Now that I’m injured, I definitely have more time to study, after all we are student athletes, but it’s inevitable there are times you have to make sacrifices for the team,” Hinds said.
Using a wheelchair, Bourka has also faced accessibility issues having to wheel herself around campus and get to classes using elevators and rerouting herself to be on time.
As athletes continue to work to gain back full fitness, Bourka says they are often receiving constant support from their coaches and teammates.
“I’ve been at Carleton for a couple years now and although not all varsity teams are that close it’s nice to see that when a fellow Raven is hurt they are all there to support them … that’s been pretty awesome.”
Feature image by Tim Austen.
