Injured Owira discharged from Gold Coast hospital

IN GOLD COAST

The television director wouldn’t show the replay on the giant screen at Robina Stadium.

It was too painful to watch.

But Kenya national sevens rugby team back Arthur Owira has taken his serious injury in good cheer.

The Kenya Commercial Bank RFC player suffered a horrific injury in Kenya’s final group game against Zambia on Saturday, fracturing his right femur bone.

Basically, the femur is the main bone between the knee and hip, and is the biggest human bone.

He needed surgery at the Gold Coast University Hospital from where he was discharged Monday and is recuperating at the Commonwealth Games Athletes’ Village.

Owira was fitted with a metal “intramedullary rod”, also known as an “IM nail”, to stabilize the femur.

Kenya’s team doctor Barnabas Bargoria said Owira will now travel back to Kenya on Tuesday.

“The player sustained a femur fracture while playing and he was brought to the Gold Coast University Hospital where he had surgery and an IM nail was fixed.

“He’s now OK and has been discharged from hospital. He has already had a session with physiotherapy and is resting in the village and I will travel with him to Kenya after two days.

“He is still getting some medication here so that he stabilizes and gets fit to travel when he is comfortable,” Bargoria said.

“At least he is able to move his leg freely, but is in the status of partial weight bearing and is able to use crutches and has full range of motion in the hip and knee,” Bargoria, an Eldoret-based orthopaedic surgeon, explained.

The doctor added that after six weeks, Owira will undergo an x-ray that will inform the next course of treatment.

Owira, who will now most certainly miss the World Cup in July, said he hopes to resume training in four months’ time.

“I was receiving the ball from kick-off and when I was passing, I was tackled from behind and then broke my right femur,” Owiro said when Nation Sport visited him in hospital earlier Monday before his discharge.

“According to what the doctor told me, it will take about four months for me to recover.”

Kenya beat Canada in their opening match of the group phase but lost to New Zealand, and despite defeating Zambia, they couldn’t progress.

New Zealand were the eventual winners after they defeated Fiji 14-0 in the gold medal match.

Coach Innocent “Namcos” Simiyu’s squad battled a catalogue of injuries in this tournament.

Apart from Owira’s fractured leg, Collins Injera injured his right arm tricep, Samuel Oliech suffered a concussion while Willy Ambaka also got a knock.

The team will remain in Gold Coast and travel direct to Singapore for the next IRB World Sevens Series tournament on April 28 and 29.

The World Cup Sevens will be hosted in San Francisco, USA, from July 20-22.