Report: Docs shoot down rumors Urlacher injury career wrecker

The rumor making the rounds Tuesday casted a dark cloud over the future of Brian Urlacher.

Word was that the surgery he had to repair his dislocated right wrist in the wee hours Monday after the Chicago Bears had flown home from Green Bay was not just season ending, but career ending.

That’s not the case reports Mike Mulligan of the Chicago Sun-Times, who spoke to two hand specialists. Urlacher dislocated the lunate bone, which is at the center of eight bones in the wrist and controls the movement of the hand. It’s also close to nerves so the risk in not repairing the injury immediately is that it could lead to permanent nerve damage. Two Bears players—cornerback Nathan Vasher and linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer—had wrist surgeries last season but returned in a matter of weeks with protection on their hands. They had broken exterior bones in their hands.

The risk, according to the club, is that Urlacher could do serious longterm damage by returning this season. According to Dr. Michael Bednar of Loyola University Health System, athletes typically return in six months to a year after these rare types of injuries and even people with complications typically retain 75 percent of their grip strength.

“We fuse wrists completely in manual laborers and they return to work,” said Dr. David Kalainov of Northwestern Memorial, who is a team surgeon with the Chicago Fire. “A wrist dislocation would not portend the end of a high-level athletic career by any means.”

But former New York Giants linebacker Carl Banks suffered the same injury during Week 4 of the 1990 season and he was back on the field for the club’s victory in Super Bowl XXI XXV. In fact, Banks was all over the field, making 14 tackles, 10 of them solos, in the triumph over th Buffalo Bills.

“I have no idea what his healing process is, but I had a very good surgeon and rehabbed it aggressively,’’ Banks said. “I was told if a guy working construction had the same thing he'd be out 18 months. It depends on the pain and the scar tissue and how you deal with it.

“It's a serious injury. If that tiny bone in there comes out, it destroys his whole hand. It's an integral part of the bone structure. Anyone who thinks he should be playing through it doesn't know how serious this is. I hope he can come back and be the same player he was before the injury.”

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