Devastation to Determination

Barbe’s Davis Meche hands off to Chase Ardoin during their game at Barbe High School. Friday, October 18, 2019. (Courtesy of Rick Hickman/Lake Charles American Press)

Any time there’s an injury that needs surgery, about a third of it is the surgeon and the surgery that’s done, about a third of it is the rehab, and another third is the mental condition of the player.

Chase Ardoin was preparing for a promising junior season as a running back on the Barbe High School football team. During a scrimmage before the 2018 season, he took the handoff and was met by two defenders who brought him down in a tackle that would alter life as he knew it.

“It was a run play, I got the ball and I had two people come and tackle me. All the weight of them put so much pressure on my knee, it just dislocated,” Ardoin said. “I don’t really know how to explain it, but I thought I broke my leg in half.”

Ardoin came to the Lake Charles Memorial Hospital emergency room where he found out that in addition to the dislocation, he also had multiple torn ligaments. Memorial Medical Group Orthopedic Surgeon Brett Cascio, MD took a look at the injury and knew how serious it was, and that there was a very small chance of Ardoin ever playing football ever again.

“This is a freak accident that occurs usually when there’s a lot of force,” Dr. Cascio said. “If you take all the ACL tears we see and or all the PCL tears we see, this is probably 1 percent of all those injuries we see. Yet, it’s very dangerous because he could’ve torn the arteries and veins in the back of his knee and you could lose your leg with this type of devastating injury.”

Trained with a fellowship in sports medicine, Dr. Cascio has seen all types of injuries from school age kids to professional athletes. Dealing with athletes is his specialty. Lake Charles Memorial Sports Medicine is the medical provider for all Calcasieu Parish High Schools and part of the medical team for McNeese State Athletics.

Brett Cascio, MD Orthopedic Surgeon

“It was an arthroscopic surgery, we basically went through two poked holes, we found the ligament ends that were torn, and we reattached them with some anchors and then used regenerative medicine to help the ligaments heal back to where they belong,” Cascio said.

Even with the odds stacked against him, Ardoin wasn’t going to let his injury slow him down. Once the surgery was done, he spent the next year rehabbing his knee in hopes of getting back in the game.

“For a minute I thought I really wasn’t going to be able to. Once I got it in my head that I really wanted to play again, nothing could stop me,” Ardoin said. “I definitely think God had a plan for me and I’m glad his plan is working out.”

“Any time there’s an injury that needs surgery, about a third of it is the surgeon and the surgery that’s done, about a third of it is the rehab and another third is the mental condition of the player,” Cascio said.

Ardoin’s confidence helped him pull through. With that determination, Ardoin fully recovered just in time for this 2019 football season and was back in the Barbe backfield spending his senior season on the gridiron.

For more information on sports medicine or orthopedics call 337.494.4900 or go to www.lcmh.com/sportsmedicine.