The Self-Proclaimed Dumbest Injury in the AUDL… A Tale of Trouble, Triumph, and Tomatoes.

There was exactly one AlleyCats game I had to watch live on AUDL.tv (now available on the Roku) in 2022. As the final seconds ticked away in the week 14 game in Atlanta, I was with my dad in Brown County, Indiana nearly 500 miles away. I finished off my beer, raising it to my lips with my left hand, while silently cursing a piece of kitchen equipment — after all, it was the reason I wasn’t playing. 

I don’t think it’s exactly a secret that AUDL player salaries aren’t quite enough to keep the bills paid. We usually fall just a few dollars short of those multi-million dollar contracts NFL and NBA players rake in - it’s the reason we all have day jobs. As a full-time college student with minimal experience and skills (outside a silly sport where we chase a piece of plastic), I was holding down a steady job in the back of a wing restaurant in Bloomington, Indiana. I was flipping burgers and frying chicken wings; putting in blood (foreshadow), sweat, and tears to feed Hoosier Nation and make some money. 

Over the summer, when the AUDL dominates my schedule, it effectively eliminates my weekend availability and work hours become scarce. So during the week, I liked to pick up some extra shifts. My favorite shifts to pick up were the 11am - 4pm dishwashing shifts. They were always available; no one ever wanted to come into work when they didn’t have to, especially to scrub wing sauce and chicken grease off people’s used plates and forks. The job didn’t gross me out, and I got to plug in my headphones, play with the high pressure water gun, and earn some extra cash. 

On this particular Thursday (keep in mind, the Cats are leaving for Atlanta Friday morning), the dish shift I picked up from 11-4 preceded a shift I was already scheduled for from 5-close. Because of my elite dish-washing ability, charm, and repertoire with upper management, often times I was able to sweet talk may way into going home early after clearing my sinks. It was about 2:00 and I had cleared most of the dishes out and could see the end in sight. Like a horse who can see his stables on its walk home, my pace picked up, hoping to leave early so I could catch a quick nap before the back half of my double shift for the day. Maybe it was my rush to get home, maybe it was the extra spring in my step the vintage T-Swift playing through my headphones gave me, maybe it was just the fact that I’m a little bit of an idiot sometimes, but in my accelerated pace of dishwashing, disaster struck. 

I grabbed the dish rack that contained the restaurant’s Choice Prep™ 3/16” Cast Aluminum Tomato Slicer and pulled it out of dishwasher, turned around and lifted it towards the drying rack like I had 1000 times before. Suddenly, a whopping 8 pounds of steel came sliding down the dish rack, blades first, and caught my hand, sandwiching it between its blades and the side of the dish rack.

It definitely hurt, but not quite that bad yet. At the time, I wasn’t sure if the pain was from the small cuts on my hand or just because it got pinched. One thing I did know, however, was that I was an idiot, and I had just racked up another incident in a long line burns, cuts, and other really dumb things I did in the back of that restaurant; but it was nothing really that out of the ordinary. At the time, I was actually more angry that I would have to wash the dishes that fell off the drying rack a second time than the fact I had cut my hand. I kept my bleeding right hand out of the way while I picked up the dishes on the floor and put them back in the sink, cleaning up my mess. After that was done, I walked over to our hand washing sink to investigate just how bad the cut was. I saw four cuts on my knuckles, one from each blade of the tomato slicer, 3/16” apart, 2 on each my middle and ring fingers. Again, nothing out of the ordinary, that was until I bent my finger and, dang it, I saw the bones of my knuckle just barely sticking out of the right side of my middle finger. 

Okay, so it was a little bit bigger of a deal than I initially thought. I ran some water over it, grabbed some gauze from the first aid kit, and went to go tell my manager that I had to go. Starting to feel the pain more and more as the initial shock ran off, and starting to feel the mild panic of seeing my own skeletal structure through my fingers, we decided it was best that one off my coworkers drove me to the urgent care. We chose to go to the west side urgent care, as we’ve sent our employees there before and knew for sure they accepted the restaurant’s worker’s comp insurance. My coworker, who in a rush to get back to work and help the team get through the lunch rush, dropped me off at the door of the urgent care, wished me luck, and sped away in his 2002 Toyota Camry. 

I walked into the clinic, into one of the most awkward waiting rooms I’ve ever been in, with bloody gauze wrapped around my fingers. The receptionist at the window is helping someone fill out paper work, and looks over his shoulder at me, and I could tell in her face that something was wrong. She kind of rushed the paper-work guy along, getting him out of the way. ‘Oh good,’ I think to myself, ‘she thinks I am in more of an emergency than the rest of these people. Maybe I’ll get looked at first.’ I walk up to the window. 

“Do you have an appointment?” She asks awkwardly. I think, ‘that was a dumb question. No, I did not plan on slicing my fingers open today.’

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“Um, no. Do I need one?” I asked, now slightly worried that my coworker dropped me off at the wrong place. 

“We don’t accept walk-ins anymore.” She tells me. My stomach drops. “Let me see your hand.” Now, bless this lady’s heart, she did make sure I wasn’t about to bleed out on her waiting room floor before turning me away. She looked at my wound and explained something about how Bloomington’s new hospital, the pandemic, and blah blah blah… they aren’t an urgent care anymore. Great. I shrug, say thanks anyways, and walk outside.

Oh yeah, my ride left. What now? I sat on the curb underneath the sign that ironically read ‘urgent care.’ I can’t call my mommy, I don’t live with her anymore and it would take her an hour to get to me. I called my coworker, I called my roommate, and I call my girlfriend — no answers from any of them. Knowing my girlfriend may have been in a meeting for her virtual job, I text her the word “Emergency,” hoping she’d call me back. I briefly consider walking 2 miles across town to the emergency room, when my girlfriend finally calls me back. I explain my situation, how I am sitting outside a falsely-advertised “urgent care,” and would love a ride to the hospital. She cancels her next meeting, and is on her way to come get me. 

Somewhere in those 10 minutes waiting for her to come get me, like a child waiting to go home from school because they got hurt at recess, I remembered that I have a game that I leave for in the morning and I now have only 60% of a functioning throwing hand. I send a text to coaches Will Drumwright (Bama) and Lauren Blansit explaining that it is probably a good idea to get a replacement lined up for me on the active roster because I -may or may not have- sliced open my hand at work, and am on the way to see if I need stitches. Of course I needed stitches, I don’t know why I thought that there was any possibility that I wouldn’t, but either way I let them know they should line up someone else to go. 

Luckily, my girlfriend was really good friends with a tech at the ER, so when we finally got to a medical facility that could actually provide me of medical care, she slides me right into service at the hospital. My butt didn’t even hit a waiting room seat. After I get patched up with a few stitches, the doctor asks me if I have any more questions. 

“Ummm, yeah. I don’t know if you know what ultimate frisbee is…” I start. My girlfriend giggles. It’s a justified reaction, I can only imagine being a medical professional that just stitched up a kid who broke open his knuckles working at a restaurant and having him immediately ask if he’s allowed to play frisbee in 48 hours. The doctor surprisingly says I could reasonably play, as long as I make a fist a couple times before the game and my stitches don’t bust, which to me, was hilarious. My medical clearance to play was dependent on my ability to make a fist, but whatever. 

I get in the car to head home, I milked the injury enough to my bosses they told me not to worry about my 5:00 shift. Score. At home, I started to play Legos with my girlfriend using only my left hand, it was my reward for being so brave at the doctors office…again, like a child who got hurt at recess. Throughout the rest of the day, I start the conversation with my coaches trying to formulate a plan. Bama responded to the initial text with something along the lines of “Keep me updated” meanwhile, Lauren tells me “This is why you can’t have nice things.” I tell them the doctor told me I could play as long as I can make a fist, but also mention that an 8 hour bus ride is a long way to go to feel it out and make a fist during warm ups.

 I wildly suggest to Lauren over text, “Hear me out. D line. Lefty only.” I’m already an offensive throwing liability, there’s a reason I only throw 20 yard flicks or dump/swings, I thought there was no way she’d even consider, but to my surprise the text back read “Well…it’s not the dumbest plan ever.” Coach obviously didn’t know how uncoordinated I am on the left side of my body, but we had a potential to play. 

That night, we had our weekly team meeting on Discord. After everyone left the call, I stayed on to give the coaches an update on my hand and come up with a plan. We weigh the pros and cons of me with my left hand, trying to force playing normally, and risking re-injury after (1) throw, effectively wasting a roster spot. After captain Cam Brock assured me that my presence on defense outweighed the liability I became on offense only being able to throw lefties, we left the meeting with the plan that I would play d-line, as long as I could catch a disc.

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As it turns out I could -not- catch a disc. Friday morning, just one hour before I needed to leave to catch the team bus, I went back to my girlfriend’s house to throw and figure out if I can play. My loose plan was to warm up the throws and then try to make increasingly difficult catches to test the limits of my hand. We didn’t get very far. On my third clap catch of the throwing session (which I thought would be the easiest to do), I busted a stitch. I text Lauren one more time telling her that I busted it open again just standing and throwing. She tells me I’m benched, and will not be getting on the bus to Atlanta. 

Luckily, that night, Chicago beat Madison, confirming our spot in the playoffs, so win or lose in Atlanta, in the grand scheme of the season, it didn’t matter. That took a load off me, because I felt that my momentary lapse of  “elite dishwashing ability,” had let the team down. So there I was, in Brown County on Saturday night. Watching the Cats lose a grinder 23-21. Do I think that me being there would have changed the outcome of the game? I don’t know. But it’s a really bad feeling having to watch your team lose 500 miles away, unable to help, especially when you sideline yourself with what had to be the dumbest injury of the 2022 AUDL season. 

Well, we did end up losing our playoff game in Minnesota two weeks later, a game in which I was able to play.  Not only did I play that week, but I played more points than anyone else in the game. I also ended up on that week’s Honor Roll, after posting a stat-line of 4 goals, 1 block, 1 assist, and 3 remaining stitches. The performance gave me the title of  “AlleyCats comeback player of the year 2022,” which was very artificially granted to me by our Social Media Coordinator, Rechelle Frash. So there is an ever so slight moment of redemption in the whole thing. 

Now I had no idea how to end this blog post; so I guess I’ll leave you with with some life lessons to take away from all this:

1. Never let someone just drop you off at an urgent care and leave immediately. 

2. Have a friend who works at the ER.

3. If you ask a doctor if your injury impedes your ability to play ultimate frisbee, prepare to be laughed at.

4. Playing Legos is much more difficult with only one, non-dominant hand.

5. “This is why you can’t have nice things” is a hilarious response to anybody telling you they’ve injured themselves. 

6. Use caution and don’t get too excited or use dangerous kitchen appliances when listening to old Taylor Swift albums.