Oh, the Things that We Learn in Times Like These

Sometimes it seems like Brian Canter just can't catch a break. His triumph at the Bass Pro Shows Shoot-out in Omaha last weekend, which was a long time coming and most definitely well deserved, has been somewhat overshadowed by the nasty pounding Brendon Clark took when Black Smoke threw him and then tried, and nearly succeeded, in stomping his guts out. I guess I'm at least as bad as everybody else on this score, because though I am genuinely happy that Canter is back in a big way, it's Clark's story that I've been following on the PBR website all week.

It looks now like Clark may be out of the Creighton University Hospital and on his way home to California by the end of this week. Doubtless he owes his rapid improvement to the bull fighters, who dashed in there to get the bull off him, to Tandy Freeman and his medical crew, who hustled in, assessed the situation, and got him out of the arena and to the hospital without delay, and to the doctors and nurses at Creighton, which also happens to be a first-rate trauma center. If there were ever a patient suffering from trauma, it has to have been Clark, who arrived at the ER with a lacerated liver, bruised lungs, and several broken ribs, spitting up blood and barely able to breathe. It also didn't hurt that Clark is in good physical shape--if he hadn't had such core body strength, his injuries might have been even more serious. Oh, and the vest. Never underestimate the protective qualities of the vest, which helped to spread the pressure from the bull's feet out over a wider area, just as a Kevlar vest simultaneously stops a bullet and spreads the impact out.

Still, I was interested to see that the "friend" who raced to Omaha when she got word of Clark's injury wasn't Anna Hunt, of bucking-bull-breeding fame, but one Allison Renz. Almost equally interesting is the fact that Ross Coleman called her with the news. This pretty much tells me that the "glamorous power couple," who were featured on 60 Minutes almost exactly two years ago, is a couple no more. I may be reading more into this than it deserves--I suppose Anna might be off at some bull breeder's convention in Kuala Lumpur and hasn't heard that her sweetie was mauled to within an inch of his life last Saturday night. But frankly, I doubt it.

All that remains for me to wonder at this point is whether Brendon Clark, who will be out of action for at least three months while he heals up, will follow the path of other badly injured PBR riders and drop off the face of the earth till he suddenly appears back on the BFTS circuit. Let me remind you that we never hear anything anymore about Lee Akin, who suffered a serious brain injury back in 2006, or about Paulo Crimber, who broke his neck last summer and pretty much hasn't been seen or heard from since. If I hadn't stumbled across that episode of CW's In Harm's Way last October, I most likely still wouldn't know that at that point, Paulo's doctors were giving him a less than 1 percent chance of ever riding a bull again.

In my most cynical minutes, I wonder whether this isn't deliberate--after all, it's a safe bet that nobody at PBR headquarters wants to keep reminding people how dangerous the sport is. In my slightly less cynical minutes, I suspect that it's a policy by neglect--the riders and the brass don't like to think about it, so they don't talk about it, and the fans are left to glean what little information they can from other sources.

All this flies in the face of the outpouring of support that Brendon Clark has gotten from the public and the riders. As Ross Coleman told him a day or so ago, “We’re brothers. That’s what we do for each other.” I don't doubt that's the case, but I do wish the PBR would update us more regularly about the status of those of our brothers who are out of our sight, but never out of our thoughts.