Horrible Injury

If you watch college football, then you have probably seen or heard about the injury to South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore.  During the play above, Lattimore dislocated his knee, and tore all four primary knee ligaments.  This type of injury will require extensive surgery and rehabilitation, but Willis Mcgahee was able to make a comeback from a similar injury.  I'm going to post some pictures of his knee after the injury at the bottom of this post, so if you have a weak stomach, you may not want to look at them.

As you can see in the picture above, Lattimore is being tackled from behind, and while his right foot is planted in the ground, he is hit just above the knee on the medial (inside) side of the femur.  These forces causes the femur and tibia to lose their normal articulation with each other, resulting in a knee dislocation.  Because of the large amount of force required to dislocate the knee, the ligaments of the knee are often damaged during a dislocation.  In Lattimore's case, the forces were so large that it tore all four ligaments of the knee: the medial (tibial) and lateral (fibular) collateral ligaments on the sides of the knee, and the anterior and posterior cruciate ligaments inside of the knee.  There have also been reports that he fractured his femur and patella as well, but I have not been able to confirm them.

If you look at the two pictures below, you can clearly see his lateral (outside part) femoral condyle, which you normally cannot see because it articulates (touches) with the top of the tibia.  You can also see that his femur and tibia are not aligned normally, it appears that the tibia (lower leg) is rotated internally.  Anytime someone has a knee dislocation, it is treated as a medical emergency because of the blood vessels and nerves that run behind the knee that could be injured.  I have not seen any reports of this occurring as a result of his injury.  Lattimore is looking at a very long road to recovery, but considering he is an elite athlete, the modern advances that have been made in sports medicine, and his desire to return to competition, I would not bet against him.