Back Injury Sends Stewart To Hospital (3rd Update)
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| Stewart out for months |
Tony Stewart suffered a burst fracture of his L1 vertebra and had surgery Wednesday in North Carolina. There are varying degrees of burst fractures, said ESPN college sports and motorsports announcer and reporter Dr. Jerry Punch, who also said he expects Stewart to be out for months. Punch has not talked with Stewart and is not treating him but said the burst fracture is worse than a compression fracture. Denny Hamlin missed five weeks after a compression fracture of his L-1 vertebra (the highest bone in the lower back) in 2013.
"[A burst fracture] is basically an explosion of the vertebrae, typically the body of the vertebrae," Punch said in a phone interview. "Unlike a compression fracture, where it sort of gets pushed down on itself, a burst fracture usually involves multiple fractures and multiple fragments. … Normally when someone has a burst fracture, you're talking months of healing, you're talking people wearing these big lumbar braces for two to three months."
Stewart will not be able to return until an MRI or a CT scan shows that the bone has healed. Stewart also will need to have rehab to strengthen his back if any of the bone fragments caused weakness to his spinal column, Punch said. "It's not like a broken arm where you can put a plate in it where you can deal with the pain and get in the car," Punch said. "With the back, it can impact your ability to walk and move the rest of your life. You can't take a chance on hitting something at all." ESPN.com
02/05/16 Legendary drag racer Don "Snake" Prudhomme gave NBC Sports a first-hand account of Tony Stewart's accident in the Southern California sand dunes Sunday. Stewart and a number of current and former racers including Greg Biffle, Jeff Gordon, Ray Evernham, Rusty Wallace and Prudhomme were having a day of fun in the sun and sand when Stewart became separated from the group and went missing for about 90 minutes. Here's how Prudhomme described the incident to NBC Sports:
"We were riding these sand rails. We do that quite a bit. We were all together. What really happened is, it isn't hard to get split off from one another. In other words, if a guy makes a left turn and you're not watching his flags or there's dust or something, you can make a right turn and kind of get lost. So, we got mixed up and (Stewart) was probably missing for an hour-and-a-half from the pack, at least. He was missing, he was not there. We figured maybe he got hooked up with one of the other guys. Then we were stopped and kinda gathered up and started to shoot the s- and asked, 'Where's Tony?' One of the guys (on the dunes) came driving up and said, 'Hey, one of your buddies is hurt over on the other side of the hill.' "There was about three of us who went back on our buggies and we came upon him. He was laying there. He got out of it (the sand buggy) and was laying there in the sand on his back."
"We pulled up, asked 'How you doing, dude?' He was on the ground and said his back's hurt. We made sure he could move all his legs and everything, so everything was good there." Prudhomme said Evernham took charge of the scene. Gordon, car collector Ron Pratte and Prudhomme provided assistance.
See more information at NBC Sports.
02/03/16 Stewart-Haas Racing officials announced Tuesday that Tony Stewart injured his back on Sunday and remains hospitalized after being involved in an accident in an all-terrain vehicle on the West Coast.
In a statement, SHR called it a “non-racing incident."
Saturday night, Stewart was present at the Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottsdale, Ariz., and was interviewed on Velocity TV.
According to sources familiar with the incident, a group who attended the auction, including Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Rusty Wallace, Don Prudhomme, Ray Evernham and Greg Biffle, traveled to the home of car collector Ron Pratte on Sunday, which is located near Winterhaven, Calif., on the Arizona/California border, east of San Diego.
Many in the group spent time driving sand buggies on a tract of land owned by Pratte in the Glamis Sand Dunes. At some point, Stewart’s buggy flipped, sources said. He was airlifted to a local hospital.
Sources familiar with the incident said Stewart’s back injury was “serious" and could require extensive recovery time.
In SHR’s initial statement, it said Stewart, 44, was awake and alert and could move his extremities but no further update on his condition would be available until at least Thursday.
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| Tony Stewart and Danica Patrick |
02/02/16 Tony Stewart, a three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion and co-owner of Stewart-Haas Racing, has been hospitalized with an undisclosed back injury.
Stewart-Haas Racing confirmed to the Associated Press that Stewart was injured in a non-racing related incident on Sunday.
It was later confirmed by a team representative that Stewart was injured while driving an all-terrain vehicle somewhere on the West Coast. He is currently being evaluated at an undisclosed hospital.
Stewart-Haas Racing later released a statement confirming the Associated Press report.
“Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing, sustained a back injury in a non-racing accident Sunday afternoon," the team said in the statement. “Stewart was transported to a local hospital following the accident and is currently being evaluated. Stewart is awake and alert and able to move all extremities. An update will be provided Thursday afternoon when more information is known."
Stewart announced last year that the 2016 season would be his last as a driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. In 2013 Stewart missed the final 15 events of the year after breaking his right leg in a sprint car crash at Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa, Iowa.