Anchorage Daily News

Six weeks ago Erik Jordt was just beginning his senior hockey season. A talented all-around forward for the Chugiak Mustangs, Jordt had a busy late fall and winter already planned out.

Hockey tournaments Outside would provide him a chance to showcase his skills in hopes of attracting an offer to play juniors, or maybe even a college scholarship.

An A student, Jordt was thinking beyond high school to college and pursuing a civil engineering degree, maybe at Montana State in Bozeman, where he would be close to extended family. If it turned out civil engineering wasn't his thing, firefighting was the backup plan.

Then everything -- the hopes, the plans, the trips -- collapsed, shattered by emergency surgery to save Erik's right leg after a freak injury.

Fear replaced hope.

Uncertainty replaced plans.

Immobilization replaced trips.

But this is not a sad story. Quite the opposite, actually.

Because six weeks after surgeons carved open his right thigh nearly from hip to knee to relieve dangerous swelling that was hours away from forcing an amputation, Erik Jordt is less than one week away from returning to the ice for the Mustangs.

'IT'S JUST HOCKEY'

It was the first day of November and Chugiak held practice a day after tying defending state champion South 1-1 a night earlier in the season-opener for both schools.

Hardly a grueling session, Jordt skated the puck toward the attacking blue line for a dump in.

"I was totally relaxed because it was a slow drill; it wasn't a physical game," Jordt, 18, recalled.

Mustangs defenseman Ben Matthews came over to put a routine check on Jordt, the type of play repeated thousands of times a day at every level of hockey the world over.

But this play was far from routine.

Matthews' knee made solid contact with Jordt's right thigh, just above the pad. The impact caused swelling and pain.

"I thought it was a minor bruise or something," Jordt said. "Every hockey player gets deep muscle bruises. You go home and ice it for an hour or two, then you skate the next day.

"He (Matthews) was just doing what he was supposed to do. It's just hockey, that's how it goes."

In short order the swelling worsened, to the point where Jordt had to cut off his boxer shorts because the thigh had ballooned to such an abnormal size.

The "minor bruise" was actually a severe injury called compartment syndrome. If left untreated such an injury can force an amputation in about 48 hours.

And the clock was already ticking.

'IT WAS KILLING ME'

"Erik knows one speed, and that's 100 percent," Chugiak coach Rod Wild said. "He loves the physical aspect of the game; he enjoys the defensive part of the game as well."

Said Jordt: "I'm the one that gets an open-ice hit and that's what starts the play. I'm always talking, getting everybody riled up. I'm one of the guys that makes everyone relax -- everyone gets all nervous and I'll say something funny."

When you play hockey, and play it that way, you're going to deal with injuries and pain all the time. It's in the DNA of the sport.

But this time was different.

"Something didn't feel right," Jordt said. "I couldn't put my pants on, I had to cut my shorts open and sit there with an ice pack on my leg. It was probably three times the size of my other leg.

"I was kind of freaked out."

But not enough to go see a doctor.

Jordt followed standard procedure and iced up his leg, popped a few ibuprofen for the swelling and went about his life.

The leg didn't improve. The pain really set in. Jordt was unable to sleep.

"It was just throbbing," Jordt said. "It was killing me."

The acute pain finally convinced Jordt that he was dealing with more than a bruise. He thought he had broken his femur.

He called his dad, Lance, to pick him up from school.

" 'You want to be the tough hockey player and walk around on that leg, it's no wonder you're in pain,' " Lance recalls telling his son. "I went and got him, and I was just going to take him home. But then I thought I don't want to be the dad that lets his kid hobble around on a broken leg for three weeks before you get it checked out."

The Jordts went to the Acute Family Medicine clinic in Eagle River to have the leg X-rayed. The scan revealed no breaks, but Dr. Luba Coverdell insisted Erik see an orthopedist immediately, fearing he had compartment syndrome.

'IT JUST SEEMED SO ODD'

According to the National Institutes of Health's online medical encyclopedia, "Thick layers of tissue called fascia separate groups of muscles ... Inside each layer of fascia is a confined space, called a compartment ...

"(F)ascia do not expand, so any swelling in a compartment will lead to increasing pressure ... which will compress the muscles, blood vessels, and nerves."

If the swelling gets bad enough, and the pressure high enough, blood flow can be interrupted, at which time permanent damage starts to occur. "In more severe cases, limbs may need to be amputated because all the muscles in the compartment have died from a lack of oxygen," according to the NIH Web site

Friday afternoon in Anchorage, about 30 hours after Jordt's injury, Dr. Jeffery Moore examined Erik and brought in Dr. George Rhyneer.

They confirmed the diagnosis of compartment syndrome by inserting two needles into the thigh to check the pressure.

"When the surgeon saw it, I could sense ... uncertainty in his mind," Lance Jordt said. "I didn't know this until afterwards, he had never seen anything that traumatic."

Erik Jordt was about 18 hours away from losing his leg. He underwent emergency surgery to relieve the pressure, a startling turn of events for what was originally thought to be a bruise.

"I couldn't believe this was happening," he said. "It just seemed so odd because it wasn't a traumatizing hit."

Rhyneer, assisted by Moore, opened up an incision almost the length of Jordt's thigh, the standard treatment for compartment syndrome.

Because of the distension caused by the swelling, the leg split apart, leaving a yawning, diamond-shaped open wound.

Stomach-churning post-op photos hammer home the severity of the injury. Jordt's leg was a mess, oozing blood over his quadriceps and looking worse than any horror film.

The procedure saved the leg, but his hockey season was finished.

'SOMETHING I CAN CHANGE'

The dramatic and traumatic turn of events over such a short period was an emotional blow, to be sure. But Jordt drew on his faith to steel him against self-pity, and fed off the resolve of his dad to get better.

"I knew I needed to be there to give him strength and encourage him, be positive," Lance Jordt said.

And even though his doctors told him that his hockey season was done, and that he was fortunate to still have both legs, Erik Jordt couldn't help but think he was being underestimated.

"I thought, this is something I can change," he said. "I can prove to them I can play."

Jordt started doing exercises from his bed to start strengthening his leg. When he was released from the hospital after nine days, his leg was wrapped in medicated gauze designed to wear away as the wound healed.

And after all the twists of this story, here is where it takes its most uplifting turn.

"(The gauze was) supposed to take a month and a half to come off, and it took six days," Jordt said.

Rhyneer, Jordt's doctor, was incredulous.

"I went in the next day and he couldn't believe it," Jordt said. "Once he said that, I was really excited because I was healing fast; I had a chance to get back in this. That next week when I went in to get the (skin graft) staples removed, he said I could start skating again if I wanted to.

"Then I knew it was in my control. After that I worked the crap out of it."

Just three and a half weeks after surgery, Jordt was skating again. At four weeks he was cleared to take a hit to the leg, which meant he was cleared to play hockey.

'HE DESERVES IT'

If all goes well, Jordt will return to action Friday against Eagle River at the McDonald Center.

"I really want it for him," Lance Jordt said. "He deserves it."

"Even if he's not at a hundred percent, the fact he's in the locker room getting dressed will be huge," Wild said. "It's going to be a pretty excited locker room."

Erik Jordt skated in an adult men's league game last week with his dad, and is still planning on attending a hockey tournament in San Jose, Calif., right after Christmas.

Slowly, many of those plans that vaporized into the ether are rematerializing, but with a slightly different outlook, the kind gleaned from facing a lost season.

From facing amputation.

"It just puts life in perspective," Jordt said. "You know how lucky you are to do things. You're never grateful to be able to walk over there and get a glass of water.

"After the injury I was just really grateful for having a leg."

---

Find Andrew Hinkelman online at adn.com/contact/ahinkelman or call 257-4335.

ADVERTISEMENT