How did University of Louisville basketball player Kevin Ware break his leg so severly the bone protruded right through the skin? INSIDE EDITION finds out how the horrifying injury happened.
If you don't believe in miracles, then this star college basketball player might change your mind. He is up on his feet less than a day after his leg broke in two on live television.
It was the freak basketball injury that shocked the country and brings new meaning to the word "courage."
The basketball game announcer said, "Oh my goodness. That is a gruesome looking injury to Kevin Ware!"
Ware, a star player for the University of Louisville, simply jumped up high and landed the wrong way on his foot and his leg literally snapped.
Now, everyone wants to know how could such a thing have happened?
Dr. Joshua Dines is an orthopedic surgeon at New York's hospital for Special Surgery.
He said, "I think it's the perfect storm. The bad, the rare way he landed on it, just a lot of force. Maybe he had an underlying condition there, maybe a stress fracture or something that was previously undiagnosed to weaken the bone.”
Dr. Dines said, "I got nauseous just like everybody else. We treat these injuries, but you don't see it happen like that very frequently."
Ware's broken bone was sticking through the skin, a sight so disturbing that CBS stopped showing it within moments of the disaster.
On the Today show, Matt Lauer said his 11-year-old son was deeply affected by the tragedy.
Lauer said, “He was so shaken, he had tears in his eyes, he said he'd never seen anything like it."
And the internet is exploding with reactions to Ware's on-camera injury. Larry King tweeted, "I’ve never seen a worse accident in a basketball game.”
Ware's teammates wept and hugged one another, and Coach Rick Pitino was also in tears but in the midst of his agony, Kevin Ware had an unselfish message.
In the press conference after the basketball game, Coach Pitino said, "I don't know if we could have gathered ourselves, I know I couldn’t of, if Kevin didn’t over and over kept saying, ‘just win the game’."
And that's exactly what Louisville did, defeating Duke University by a score of 85 to 63. That's Ware's jersey, draped in front of the trophy.
In an on-court interview after the game, Coach Pitino said, "The bone is six inches out of his leg and all he's saying is "win the game!"
Ware's mom was watching the game at home and as he was taken into surgery, Ware phoned her and said, "Calm down, mom, I'm okay."
Kevin Ware was surrounded by family and his coaches in his hospital room. He underwent a two-hour operation to insert a support rod but after this horrific injury, can this brave young man ever play again?
Dr. Dines said, "If everything goes well, he’s clearly a great athlete, he's a young kid, he's got potential. But it's a long road."
