By ROY WARD
THE term “lights out” in football often refers to getting knocked out; when Heathmont footballer Mehmed Bektas uses it while talking about his neck injury he means death.
The 27 year old was forced into football retirement last week after fracturing his C7 vertebra while playing for the Heathmont Jets against Wantirna South in an Eastern Football League division 3 game on May 12.
Bektas spent three days strapped to a hospital bed following the injury and had surgery to remove a bone fragment from close to his spine and fuse his fractured vertebra to a healthy one.
But if not for the intervention of his doctors and his fiancee, trained chiropractor Kaiti Williams, Bektas could have ended up losing much more than his suburban football career.
After injuring himself he not only continued to play but after a first hospital X-ray showed no serious damage, he was planning to head out to an engagement party until taking further scans on advice of his doctor and Williams.
The scans showed the fracture, leaving doctors to strap him down to stop any further neck movement.
“It was horrific; they thought I might have a dislocated neck, then they found the fracture,” Bektas said. “I was still in footy gear and I hadn’t warmed down so I was cramping up and couldn’t stretch because they were worried that if I moved I could have severed my spinal cord.
“And when the damage is that far up your spine you don’t become a paraplegic. It’s lights out; you die.”
Bektas now has to spend the next six weeks staying at home and avoiding any form of contact to his neck as he recovers from the surgery.
Surgeons have used a mental plate to help secure his vertebra and make sure it can’t move.
He can walk and has full control of his movements but he has also been told he can never play contact sports again, which is a bitter blow after his sporting career which included starring for South East Australian Basketball League side Dandenong Rangers before turning to football.
He was in his first season with the Jets after crossing from Eastern Lions.
Bektas was originally injured when he leant over to pick up the ball and was collected front-on by a Wantirna South player.
“I saw him coming and tried to turn but didn’t move quick enough so my body went one way and my head the other way. I heard a big crunch and my left arm went numb,” Bektas said.
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