Cobblers head physio Stuart Barker has described the injury suffered by Alex Nicholls against Port Vale on Saturday as the worst he has ever seen.
Barker was the first member of medical staff on the pitch after the striker’s double leg break, 23 minutes into the 2-0 win over the Valiants.
He immediately called for the player to receive entonox (a combination of nitrous oxide and oxygen more commonly known as ‘gas and air’) and morphine, via a tube, for pain relief.
Barker also tried to shield Nicholls from seeing the injury, but the player did witness the extent of the damage to his left leg.
“It was definitely the worst injury I have seen,” he said. “I knew something was quite seriously wrong because of the way the players were calling us onto the pitch.
“As I went on, the first thing I saw was the bone sticking out of his leg and his foot was all deformed.
“What we needed to do early was get the entonox on, to get a bit of pain relief – there’s not much we can do with him to start with.
“I tried to get myself between his face and the injury so he couldn’t see what was going on down there. He knew it was pretty bad.
“Then I was reassuring him, talking to him, until everyone else got on.”
Nicholls left the field with his family members in an ambulance and underwent surgery at Northampton General Hospital to have a nail inserted in his shin and a skin graft on his ankle.
The injury was a very bad one, and looked even worse, but Barker was impressed with how the player handled it psychologically.
“Considering how bad it was he did not panic,” he said. “He was obviously in a lot of pain but some players will get flustered and move around. He just laid there and dealt with the pain.
“People get anxious. It can’t be nice to look down at your leg and see a bit of bone sticking out.
“The doctor came on, then we got the entonox and the defib on pretty quickly. The paramedics then arrived and put a cannula line into him to get some morphine into him.
“That gave him some extra pain relief.”
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