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On September 6, 2008 UNC Asheville men's soccer senior defenseman Edwin Wotortsi lost more than just the game against the visiting Appalachian State Mountaineers.
"From what I can remember, we were playing pretty well," Wotortsi said. "Ten minutes to go, they had a corner kick and they scored off of it, and in turn we tried to push up to tie the game. We got a corner kick and we sent everybody up, including myself."
Those final minutes would be the longest of his life, he said.
"On the flight of the ball, I remember, I saw it and the goalkeeper looking at it, but I didn't see him coming out for it," Wotortsi said. "It was coming towards me, and so I jumped up. By the time I was in mid air, I realized it was a big mistake, because I saw the goalkeeper coming out with his knee up."
It just happened. Everything just happened so fast, he said.
"I could not brace for impact, his knee just went right through my stomach," Wotortsi said. "I just collapsed and didn't see the ball or anything after that. I was on the ground in pain, and it just didn't feel right."
The trainer came on the field shortly after to check on him and narrow down where the pain was, according to Wotortsi.
He said it was one of the worst pains he ever felt. To him, he said it didn't feel like a typical muscle pain or anything of that nature.
"I couldn't move, because every movement just hurt," Wotortsi said. "The only comfortable position was on my knees and hunched over."
Later, they took him off the field into the training room, where the ambulance soon arrived and took him to the hospital, he said.
"It was a pretty fast ride," Wotortsi said. "My girlfriend was with me the whole time, and she told me stories about how I was screaming from the pain. A couple of times I passed out from it, because it was that extreme. They gave me the normal dose for morphine, and I asked for more, which they did, but eventually they couldn't give me any more."
He said the hospital staff, following procedure, took X-rays that returned inconclusive results. This led the doctors to speculate over his condition, which made him question their ability, he said.
"They got the X-rays back and said there's nothing broken," Wotortsi said. "They said it was probably a deep abdominal tissue bruise and I was like, 'Are you serious? Because I've had bruises and this doesn't feel like it.' They should've done more tests, but they said they couldn't do anything more. They gave me a prescription for oxycodone and sent me home."
The next morning he said pain was a recurring theme. He said he spent most of his time looking down a prescription bottle.
"They told me to follow-up in a couple of days if the pain had not improved," Wotortsi said. "My girlfriend got me the prescription filled, and that whole day I was just on pain medicine, taking two oxycodones every four to six hours. I went through half a bottle."
Wanting some fresh air, he said he went downtown to a festival with some friends and walked around. He said it took all the strength in his body to simply do that.
"The pain was just unbearable," Wotortsi said. "I was taking half a step every time. I just wanted to get some fresh air and just breathe and get out. I'm not a person who, when they get sick, likes to stay indoors. I remember I would walk, and every 50 yards, I would have to sit and rest, because I was fatigued already."
He said the pain and fatigue are all he remembers from that day.
The next day, he said his roommate gave him a ride to campus to see the athletic trainer for a follow-up.
"I talked to Cory, the trainer, about how I was feeling and how the day before was," Wotortsi said. "She told me to go see her superior, Dr. Watts. I went there and she checked up on me, again, by pressing around to see where the pain is so she could determine what's going on. She told me it wasn't looking good and I needed to go back to Mission."
Following the doctor's orders, he went back to Mission Hospital, and they put him right back in the ER. That's when things began to pick up pace.
"They gave me a MRI, and to do that, you have to drink the highlighter, so they can see your organs," Wotortsi said. "I had to sit there and drink this awful tasting highlighter for an hour. When the results came back, everything went even faster. They rushed me back to the hospital room and all I remember is I had four or five nurses around me, telling me they need to get me ready for surgery."
Doctors proceeded to hook him up to machines to check his vitals, he said. They soon returned with the results from the MRI.
He said the results showed that when the knee struck him in his midsection, it crushed his spleen, which smashed into his pancreas and his pancreas smashed into his backbone, in that order. Doctors told him 80 percent of his pancreas was damaged and that they would try to save as much as they could.
"When he was explaining it to me, I was asking, 'Am I going to be alright? Is this safe?'" Wotortsi said. "They said they would try to take care of it and not complicate it in anyway and that they only see this injury from car accidents. This was a freak accident. The doctors told me that I have a high pain threshold, because people who would've gone through this, their vital signs wouldn't have been normal. Their heart rate would've been going crazy and their blood pressure would be off the charts."
Wotortsi said he went into surgery around 2 a.m. the next morning. He said he had a few surgeries, but they were really just all part of one complete surgery.
"It really was just one big surgery that I had and a few other procedures to go along with it," Wotortsi said. "I was very lucky because diabetics use 15 percent of their pancreas and I was able to retain about roughly 20 percent of my pancreas. I got tested everyday at the hospital to make sure I wasn't diabetic."
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