Surviving back and head injury

A WAVE of emotions engulf Cicero Links (32), as he recounts his time as a professional rugby player in Namibia. Links suffered a severe head injury in 2008, followed by a back injury in 2010, which ended his active rugby playing days.

Links said he started playing touch-rugby as early as the age of six, and had over the years taken a liking to the sport.

At eight, he ventured into playing football, but this was not to last as his love for rugby took over in his high school years.

This followed through to his university years, where the athlete played for the University of Namibia (Unam)’s rugby team.

Links was serious about the sport. During his senior high school year and early university years, he “picked up weight” for the sport. He was physically sturdy, and first took the position as ‘lock’, but switched to being a flanker, a position which required him to be bulky as he was at the line of defence.

However, it was not until the winter of 2008 after he succumbed to his first major injury on his head that his physical and phycological health began to deteriorate.

“It was the second-last league match against Kudus of Walvis Bay. It was a head-on collision with the opposition, on the right side of the head,” he remembered.

The athlete was knocked out for about six minutes, with blood dripping from his nose.

After treatment and during the time he spent recuperating, he could not stand for more than two hours at a time before collapsing.

Although he was not bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound, Links said he suffered dizziness, disorientation and migraines.

“It was like someone taking a hammer and hitting me on the head,” he said, “Like someone taking a belt and twisting it around my head”.

Although he was worried about his injury, a few months afterwards, he was up and running again. He was, however, warned by his doctors to refrain from the sport, but that did not keep him from putting the ball down.

“If I can stand on my feet again, I’m fine”, Links said was his mentality at the time.

But 2010 would be the last time he ever played on the field again, after his second major injury on his back in another league game at the time.

In the 68th minute of that game, while the athlete was engaged in a scrum, he fell head-first to the ground, with his back exposed. The heavy opposition players landed on his back.

“I laid there for four minutes, and when the ambulance came, I pointed out the pain in the middle of my back,” he recalled. “I could hear my bones pop.”

There was acute pain on his upper back when he was laying on the ground in agony. The only thought in his head was whether he would walk again.

“I’m not playing anymore, thank God I’m not paralysed,” was what he told himself after the injury. “I’m not going to sugar-coat it because it is dangerous,” he explained.

Links said he would have been dead had he continued the sport, noting that it was a blessing in disguise and a wake-up call to leave the sport.

Most importantly, the ex-athlete left rugby because he wanted to spent more time with his daughter.

“I started to look at the sport differently,” he added. He questioned the sport, and said that anyone who played it was racing to their death. Today, he sees a physiotherapist every six months, and experiences physical and psychological problems. “I have to read articles at least three times to fully understand them,” he said. The ex-athlete now has trained his brain to read better.

When he bends his back, he still experiences severe back pain.

“I usually slouch to ease the pain, but slouching then causes breathing problems. I feel a spike in my spine, sometimes,” he added.

“I have asked my doctor if I don’t have some blood clot on my brain because I am paranoid,” he continued.

According to Gobabis-based physiotherapist, Togareti Gahadza, injuries are measured from grades one to four, with one being minor pain, and four being very painful.

He added that sports injuries are inevitable. But if players are “fully fit, well-trained and calculated”, they have better chances at recuperating well.

In his practice, Gahadza is also faced with counselling patients as they get depressed and sometimes feel hopeless.

Patients also run from doctor to doctor within the first year or two of an accident or bad injury, seeking appropriate specialist attention, and “it can also be a huge financial loss,” he said.

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