News

For Rodeo Cowboy, Banged-up Body Comes with the Job

03/13/2015

March 13--In a windowless room in the nether regions of NRG Stadium, athletic trainers Robbie Mcfarlin and Jace Duke had just finished taping the shoulder of a 26-year-old bareback rider from Utah set to compete later that evening at the Houston Rodeo.

He'd strained his left rotator cuff in December at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas and it wasn't completely healed. The taping was a preventive measure, as was the plastic brace on his surgically repaired right elbow.

In a sport and profession like Caleb Bennett's, which pits men against angry bulls, fully grown steers and bucking broncos, injuries are a fact of life. Chances are there are few bones in a hard-core rodeo cowboy's body that haven't been broken, tendons and ligaments that haven't been torn, or joints that haven't been dislocated.

"I don't think I've ever met a cowboy who didn't have something tore up," said Mcfarlin. "It's not a matter of if, but when."

Mcfarlin and about 120 physicians, chiropractors, massage therapists, paramedics and orthopedic specialists volunteer over the course of the rodeo, providing preventive care and treatment before, during and after events.

"It's a rough sport," said Duke, vice chairman of the Rodeo Sports Medicine Committee. "We could see major trauma. There's a big animal trying to get you off it."

Injuries range from the mundane to the horrific, Duke said, and each event is associated with specific types of injuries.

Bull riders, for example, tend to suffer more hip, pelvis, and groin strains; bareback and saddle-bronc riders sustain more over-use injuries; steer wrestlers experience more ligament and knee injuries.

That's the event 28-year-old Erich Rogers of Arizona was participating in when he smashed his wrist. Had to jump off his horse to avoid slamming into a wall, he said, shortly after a doctor slapped an ice pack on his wrist and swaddled it with transparent plastic wrap.

Like Bennett, he couldn't comprehend not competing.

"It's the only thing I know how to do," he said, smiling.

First treatment, then the tube

Every night during the rodeo, the medical team descends on the sports medicine rooms in the bottom floor of NRG Stadium. Each person volunteers about 20 hours over the course of the rodeo, or about five nights, as cowboys ride bulls, cowgirls weave at a gallop through barrels, and youngsters wrestle calves into submission.

"I think people would be surprised to know what services competitors can get," athletic trainer Mike Vara said as a steady stream of cowboys walked in seeking chiropractic adjustments, deep-tissue massage, and heat therapy.

Those with potential broken bones can even get X-rayed on site, Vara said.

"They come in with a goal to compete," he said. "We want to help them achieve that goal the best they can, in the safest way possible, with the least interference."

Once the competitors head to the arena, the members of the sports medicine committee keep an eye out for them when they compete.

"When you work on someone, you look for them on the tube," Vara said. "We want them all to do well, but we push a little harder for the ones we treated."

On Wednesday, Amy Smith prepared to give a 28-year-old cowboy a massage.

"What do you do," she asked Tyrell Smith (no relation).

"Saddle bronc," the Montana native replied, drawing a bemused grimace from the massage therapist.

"Them and bareback riders -- they're the hardest to work on," she explained, before she started digging an elbow into the muscles along the cowboy's back.

Different challenges

"You're not so bad," she told Smith, after a moment.

For him, it was a treat.

"We don't get this much attention most of the time, so we try to come in to take advantage of it," the saddle-bronc rider said, his voice muffled as he lay facedown on the black massage table.

"How's that?" the therapist asked, minutes later.

"A lot better," the Montanan said, shrugging his shoulders and working his head side to side. Half an hour into her shift, he was the third competitor seeking a massage, Amy Smith said.

In a room nearby, Houston Fire Department Capt. Richard Cole and several paramedics and nurses prepared for the night. They were also among the many members of the sports medicine committee helping with safety and responding to emergencies every night.

For Cole, the cowboys weren't the biggest safety issue. Protective gear -- helmets, vests -- have made things safer. It's the calf scramble that keeps him and his crew busy.

"That's who we deal with the most," said Cole, a rodeo volunteer for more than 25 years.

The rodeo presented different challenges for his paramedics, he said. Instead of victims trapped in burning buildings or smashed cars, paramedics have had to treat potentially paralyzing injuries on a floor of sand in the arena.

And when a contestant gets hurt, first responders have to wait until rodeo workers have cleared whatever steer, bull or bronco might still be rampaging around the stadium.

Competing with injuries

For Brandant Cruz, a Houston chiropractor, the rodeo offers a chance to help people who really need it. Rodeo contestants suffer "repeat trauma," he explained.

"Someone who comes to my clinic has an accident and deals with it," the 34-year-old chiropractor said. "These guys deal with it every single day. That's how they live their lives."

The staff treats 40 to 45 people each night, Duke said. That ends up being about 80 treatments a night, since the competitors often return to check in with trainers or doctors after their events.

The nature of the rodeo -- unsteady paychecks, high risks of injury, and the stubbornness of the contestants, means the sports medicine team sometimes has to help them compete even when they're already injured, said Kelly Larkin, an emergency room doctor and head of the sports medicine committee.

"In an emergency room, I can tell someone to take four weeks off," she said. "When it's their livelihood, we have to ask what we can do to help them get out there and ride."