FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Westminster, B.C. – September 28, 2011
RCH Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Darius Viskontas tests for feeling in Stanley Franks’s left foot.
RCH Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Darius Viskontas views image of Stanley Franks’s left leg, prior to surgery.
BC Lions Defensive Back will walk again after freak injury
Stanley Franks grateful to Royal Columbian Hospital medical teams for saving his leg
BC Lions Defensive Back Stanley Franks nearly lost not only his playing career but his entire leg as a result of a severe hyper-extended knee injury during a game against the Calgary Stampeders this season. Running at top speed, Franks stepped on top of a receiver’s foot. The impact dislocated Franks’s knee and forced it backwards and to the side.
“I just knew my season was over…I had no feeling where my shin should be,” recalls Franks. “I’ve had injuries before, but nothing to this level.”
While BC Lions Team Physician Dr. Dory Boyer was able to pop Franks’s knee back into place on the field, he could find no pulse in the major knee artery. Without immediate restoration of blood flow, Franks would surely lose his leg.
Franks was rushed from the field to Royal Columbian Hospital (RCH) where Vascular Surgeon Dr. Kamyar Kazemi meticulously repaired the artery, which had been torn in half. Franks’s hospital ordeal was far from over, though. Several weeks later, Orthopaedic Surgeons Dr. Darius Viskontas and Dr. Trevor Stone took on the highly complex and difficult task of reconstructing Franks’s posterolateral (outside) corner knee ligament. There are only three orthopaedic surgeons in B.C. who conduct this type of complex surgery – two of them are at RCH.
Franks is now embarking on a nine-month rehabilitation program. While he remains hopeful about returning to the field, his future playing career is uncertain. He is; however, certainly grateful to the medical teams at RCH for saving his leg. “RCH was vital in the whole process of saving my leg,” says Franks. “I owe it to them to give the recovery process all I’ve got.”
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For more information, please contact:
Shannon Henderson
Communications Specialist
Royal Columbian Hospital Foundation
604.520.4438
shannon.henderson@fraserhealth.ca