RODEO COWBOYS KNOW REAL PAIN; MEDICAL TEAMS ARE BUSY AT SIKESTON THIS WEEK

Bruce Ford taped up his arm before the bareback event at the Sikeston Jaycees Bootheel Rodeo Thursday night. Ford of Kersey, Colo., has been rodeoing for 35 years. He wears a shoulder brace because of a dislocated shoulder.

SIKESTON -- It's the busted knees and the battered shoulders and the bad backs and the sprains and the strains and the pain.

And they call the thing rodeo.

Bustin' broncs may be fun, but it's hard on the body, say the health-care experts who hang around and patch up the cowboys and bullfighters.

Dr. Alfred Moretz, a Cape Girardeau orthopedist, and a team of physical therapists and trainers are manning the Justin Sportsmedicine Center this week during the Jaycees Bootheel Rodeo.

And they're staying very busy.

"Wednesday night we had 15 bad backs, and I just stopped counting," said Robert Sherrill, a physical therapist with Mid America Rehab in Cape Girardeau.

Moretz said they usually treat three types of injuries: knees, shoulders and lower back.

The knee injuries occur during falls or "when they plant their knees during roping events," Moretz said.

Shoulder injuries "are strictly from use," he said.

And the bad backs result when the horse or bull is mobile, but the lower back isn't.

Then there are the pulled muscles, the broken bones and the cuts and bruises.

Wednesday night a rider had to be hospitalized after suffering a badly broken leg during one of the riding events.

Getting thrown off a horse or slammed into a gate by an angry bull isn't good for a person, Moretz and Sherill said.

Mike Johnson, a bullfighter and rodeo clown, spent a good 15 minutes getting taped up Thursday night before heading into the ring.

The ankle taping was to prevent injury, said Johnson, a Poplar Bluff native who now lives in Texas.

"We have to work on an uneven surface, and it's kind of deep," he said. "You hope it's mud."

Johnson has been competing since he was in high school. He worked his way through college riding bulls.

He also got his knee taped up Thursday night.

"Whatever's left in there doesn't work anymore," he said. "I got run over by a bull back in Vernon, Texas, back in May."

His knee "just popped" during the accident.

Many of the riders do their own taping. "Some of them can do it better than us," Sherrill said.

Medical services are offered free of charge, and an ambulance and emergency medical crew are stationed at the rodeo grounds in case of emergency.

The medical crew sees a lot of repeat business, said Sherrill.

"Last night I saw guys that I've seen every year here for the last three years," he said. "We see them on the circuit every year."

In addition to the injuries the riders will suffer during this year's event, Moretz and crew treat a lot of chronic injuries from past rodeos. Part of that is due to the dangerous nature of a professional rodeo rider's job.

And part of it stems from simple economics, Moretz said. "When these guys don't ride, they don't get paid," he said. "The criteria for them is, can they do their event? Not can they do it comfortably."

Most rodeo riders will only take a day or two off for injuries that would keep other professional athletes out of action for a month, Moretz said.

Donna Hughes, a barrel racer from Brookville, Ohio, was getting physical therapy for a pinched nerve. It wasn't the horse that caused the injury; it was a computer.

"This is a real work-related injury," said Hughes, who suffered the injury while working her real job as an accountant.