Jarryn Geary reveals full extent of compartment syndrome injury

Jarryn Geary’s leg injury required three surgeries, 30 stables and 19 ‘fishing wire’ staples, but the St Kilda captain says it could have been a whole lot worse.

Three surgeries, 30 staples and 19 “fishing wire” stitches.

St Kilda captain Jarryn Geary has opened up on the gruesome compartment syndrome injury that saw him hospitalised and now sidelined for an indefinite period.

Geary, who copped a corkie to the quad in St Kilda’s Round 5 win over Melbourne, spent almost a week in the Epworth Hospital after compartment syndrome developed quickly after the game.

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He said he had initially “brushed it off” but things quickly turned when he began to travel home after the game.

“It wasn’t until I got in the car and started driving home … I battled to get out of the car – my leg had blown up pretty significantly by then,” Geary said.

“I thought I’d go in and ice it. I was giving my wife no help around the house when we got home … she sort of cracked it with me, so I started icing and it just kept getting progressively bigger and the pressure started really getting into the leg.

“It got to about 10.30, and I thought I’d go and have a shower and go to bed. I thought ‘nah, I better ring Barbs’ (doctor Tim Barbour). So I rang our doctor and he said to go to hospital, so I went to hospital.”

By 2am, and “after a few phone calls from the emergency doctor to a few surgeons”, Geary was operated on.

“It looks pretty confronting,” he said.

“I knew that was the procedure I was having … I was a little bit worried it was going to have to go down that path. When I saw it, I was pretty impressed with how lean I was, to be honest.

“It looks bad, but I knew I was going in and getting that procedure. After that, they cut it open, put a vac dressing on it – like a vacuum to suck out the blood. For a couple of days I had the vac dressing on ... went in for surgery again to clean it up and be sure I didn’t have any permanent muscle damage, which I didn’t – we got on top of it early enough for me not to have any permanent muscle damage.

“After three procedures, we were able to get it closed.”

St Kilda’s Jarryn Geary . Picture: Michael Klein

Five to 10 per cent of the muscle had changed in colour, which has since returned to normal, but Geary insisted that more serious ramifications weren’t immediately obvious even when looking at the gruesome injury.

“It’s hard to really tell (what would have happened if I had left it longer) – the muscle had started to change a little bit of colour even then, if I had waited a significant amount of time, I probably would have been in trouble,” he said.

“I got it really early – people have lost limbs, but I wasn’t ever close to that, because I was lucky enough to have excellent medical opportunities … there was really no risk of that once it was cut open.”

Geary said he “wouldn’t want to go through it ever again” and is hoping to slowly resume training – potentially starting on a bike on Thursday – as his recovery continues.

Originally published as Jarryn Geary reveals full extent of compartment syndrome injury