How EXOGEN helped Dave Crowther's non-union to heal after an Alpine fall

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How EXOGEN helped Dave Crowther's non-union to heal after an Alpine fall

How EXOGEN helped Dave Crowther's non-union to heal after an Alpine fall

A 25m fall into a crevasse in the Alps gave Dave Crowther multiple fractures to his legs. It was 2 hours until rescuers could reach him and three years until his fractures were fully healed. With EXOGEN’s help, he is now back on the mountains that he loves, skiing and rock climbing.

When keen sportsman Dave Crowther set off for a day of ski-mountaineering, he expected to be challenged physically and mentally. But what followed would test his endurance not for one day but over a year in a battle to overcome the injuries he sustained and which affected his family and career.

It was safety first for Dave Crowther and five friends as they paused to check their bearings on a ski-mountaineering descent of a glacier high above Zermatt in Switzerland.

They had taken a chair lift as high as they could and then climbed on their specially adapted skis to a point far above the pistes. Although the weather wasn’t ideal it was well within the safety limits of the group who were all experienced ski-mountaineers.

In April the snow was at its thickest after the winter and before the spring thaw could reach their altitude, but suddenly the ice beneath Dave collapsed and he plunged 25m into the darkness of a crevasse, breaking the tibia and fibula in both legs, as well three ribs, shattering his left kneecap and puncturing a lung.

His friends called the mountain rescue services and did all they could to rescue him using their ropes but it was impossible with the edge of the crevasse being so fragile.

Dave explains his situation: “Where I landed, the crevasse had narrowed to just a few centimetres and my body was well and truly wedged in and couldn’t move. I tried to move my feet but they were flapping uselessly and the pain was overwhelming. I thought I had broken my pelvis.

“Very quickly I knew that I was completely unable to move or do anything to help myself which was both frightening and intensely frustrating.”

Realising his friends were unable to pull him out, Dave was now totally reliant on rescue coming from miles away and faced a wait for the helicopter that was in all senses of the word agonising. Fortunately he was not aware then of the problems that lay ahead.

After 25 long minutes the rescue team arrived but couldn’t land due to the deteriorating weather. Two men dropped down off the helicopter with a tripod to lift the ropes away from the fragile edge of the crevasse and began the process of pulling Dave to the surface.

With poor weather preventing a landing, Dave was on the glacier for a further two hours receiving morphine injections before he could finally be airlifted straight onto the helipad on the roof of the hospital in the town of Visp.

The extent of his injuries was revealed by a full body scan and he underwent emergency surgery to stabilise the damage to his kneecap and external fixators attached to his legs. Due to his punctured lung could not fly back to the UK for a further eight days.

When he finally made it back to his local hospital, Stepping Hill in Stockport, he was assessed by a consultant orthopaedic surgeon.

In the first week, Dave’s consultant operated to repair and fix the fractured tibia and fibula in both legs and delivered the news that he would need to have external fixator frames fitted which he would have to wear and adjust daily for the next six months.

Over the coming weeks and months Dave got on with life as best he could with the frames but X-rays revealed that neither tibia was healing properly and after eight months his consultant decided that Dave need a bone graft procedure to both his legs.

During this time, the impact on his home and professional life was all too clear. “I have a small software engineering business. The combination of immobility and pain during this time has meant that my business has effectively closed and of course I have been very reliant on my wife and other family members to support me physically. It has been exceptionally trying.”

Shortly after the bone grafts, Dave’s surgeon decided to use an EXOGEN™ device on his tibia to hopefully assist the healing. Still following the daily programme of adjusting the frame on his leg, he began to notice that adjusting the small screws which in turn change the angle of the bone at the point of the fracture was becoming harder and for the first time causing him pain. He discussed this with his consultant who recommended revising the adjustment programme to the point where it had been a few days previously.

This had no effect and the frame could not be adjusted without causing pain so his consultant X-rayed Dave’s leg and found that the bone was now completely healed. Unwittingly Dave had been turning the screws against solid, fully healed bone which was resisting the force and this was the cause of the pain.

The X-ray results were conclusive and meant that the frame could be removed some weeks ahead of schedule. The frame was finally removed in March 2009, just before the first anniversary of Dave’s fall into the crevasse.

The accelerated healing meant that Dave was able to pick up the pieces of his business and lifestyle that much faster and could plan his return to active sports.

In the last year, Dave has returned to the mountains with a vengeance, first with a walking holiday and more recently he has re-discovered his love of rock climbing and after a short ski tour, he is now looking forward to a full skiing holiday.

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