Blood Writes: What's The Medical Term For A Broken Face?

Welcome to Blood Week. We put out the call on Friday for your tales of of blood, violence, gruesome injuries, near-death experiences, mayhem, and blood. Many of you came through with submissions, which we'll be posting throughout the week. If you have a story and/or photos to share, email [email protected], with Blood Week in the subject line.

Here's Daniel with an answer to an important medical question:

So, I play rugby for a club in Dallas and we were on the road for one of our away games in Austin. Austin is always a solid road trip and typically an awesome night of blacking out after the match. Needless to say, things to be excited about.

So game starts and things are going pretty well. Just having fun enjoying a great day and playing some rugby. Things are going well we score and go up by a try and they kick back off about 10 minutes in. One of our guys receive the ball and get tackled immediately and I step over him (ruck in rugby) to secure the ball. All of a sudden a see a flash of elbow flying at my face. Instantaneous stars, I hear a crack, and blood was pouring everywhere out of my nose and mouth. This is not typical in rugby; most people don't take cheap shots so you don't expect it. Being kind of in a daze after rolling around I get up and tell our captain (a pink haired Aussie), "I broke my face." We have to figure something out, since we have zero subs. He responds, "Mate, you can't break your face, and there's nobody. It's just a shiner, no doctor will ever tell you you've broken your face." So I say screw it and just keep playing the match for another 70 minutes. Every time I tackle, get tackled, or take a step I can hear bone crunching around and receive a new supply of blood in my throat. It didn't swell at all during the game but it was constant pain. If I've ever felt pure misery that was it. There worst part was that there obviously would not be any mayhem for me after the match.

So instead of the intelligent thing and going to the hospital there I drive back to Dallas and my face blows up so much it looks like I have a women's basketball in my cheek. I go to a small ER center to get checked out, and the doctor takes X-rays/MRI and walks back in and says, "You broke your face." So it is possible to break your face, at least in medical terminology. Oh and we lost the game. Worst day of losing ever.