EDMONTON- After a workplace accident made walking nearly impossible for a young Edmonton man, he now has new hope he will run again, thanks to a unique transplant surgery.
Two years ago, then 20-year-old Matt Smith went to work like he did every other day. But, an accident quickly changed his life.
“It was a 2,200 pound weight for a pump jack that fell on my leg.”
Smith says he was in so much shock, he couldn’t feel a thing.
“It just sounded like popcorn. That’s all I remember.”
Smith tore three out of four of the main ligaments in his left knee; the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), posterial cruciate ligament (PCL) and medial collateral ligament (MCL). He also tore an artery that supplies most of the blood to the lower leg.
“They said it was really, severely damaged. I was expecting to wake up with no leg,” Smith recalled.
Hearing that news was extremely tough for the soccer player, but now, the 22-year-old has new hope.
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“I just really feel hopeful about getting back to some level of physical activity. Because doing nothing, sitting around, for the past two years has just been hell.”
Over the past two years Smith has undergone more than a dozen surgeries to stabilize his knee and rebuild the ligaments, and last month he underwent a first-of-its-kind surgery right here in Edmonton.
An orthopedic surgeon transplanted live meniscus, cartilage and bone to reconstruct Smith’s knee joint.
“There’s two aspects that are new; one is to do both sides of the joint and two, to do the meniscus,” explained orthopedic surgeon Dr. Nadr Jomha.
Watch Jomha explain part of the unique procedure below:
It was the first time a surgery of this kind was performed in our city. Jomha says there is a potential for more procedures like this to be performed in Edmonton, however, the tissue bank is in Calgary.
Jomha is hopeful a tissue bank could one day be set up in Edmonton, but more donors are needed. Specialists say the city needs more than seven times the tissue donors it has now, to meet the demand of local hospitals.
Smith says he’s started speaking to his family about becoming donors, because the procedure has changed his life.
“(Before the surgery) I couldn’t really walk. I had pain every couple steps in my knee, so walking two blocks felt like it was at least 10 blocks,” said Smith. “Bending and straightening it before would just kill me, because it would feel like something was grinding in my knee. But now… it doesn’t even hurt at all.”
Smith expects to go through another six to seven months of physiotherapy, but his future looks bright.
“I heard some of the results of some of the people that have had similar surgeries… they’re out running marathons now,” he said. “I just really feel hopeful about getting back to some level of physical activity.”
With files from Laurel Clark.
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