Surviving bad breaks.

Byline: Adam Jude The Register-Guard

She watches from the end of the bench now, her broken right leg extended forward, her crutches tossed behind her.

From the sideline, she keeps stats and cheers her teammates and listens intently to her coach's directives. She's grateful she's even able to do that much at this point, though she certainly wishes she was still the one creating the stats and receiving the cheers and adjusting to the directives.

Hannah Mirsepassi's new role is far from playing the pivotal part of a starting center-midfielder for the Churchill High School girls soccer team, which she did briefly last month before sustaining what her coach called one of the worst sports-related injuries imaginable.

A sophomore, Hannah trained rigorously over the summer in hopes of making the varsity team. She turned 16 on Aug. 13 and got her driver's license a few days later. And she did indeed make varsity, playing so well that she earned a starting job at a position Churchill coach Shane Dasher dubs the "playmaker."

Hannah was in the driver's seat.

She started the first two games of the season until, in one brief, scary moment on Sept. 11, she collapsed on the field, her right leg bent dramatically in the shape of a V.

At a time when injuries among young female athletes are escalating with the popularity of their sports, Hannah's broken femur - the largest bone in the body - is one of the more rare, and more painful, injuries to endure, Dasher said.

"Next to being paralyzed, I don't think there's anything worse than that," he said.

With the same determination she used to become a playmaker, everyone around her is convinced Hannah will heal fully and quickly from the devastating break. She's already ahead of the game, working so hard to recover that her mom is concerned she's pushing too much, too soon.

"She so determined," said Linda Mirsepassi, "I'm worried she's going to kill herself."

Injuries rising in girls sports

Hannah isn't alone on the sideline.

Nationwide, more than 3 million girls are participating in high school sports this year, a record number according to the National Federation of State High Schools Association. The increased turnout has created an increase in the occurrences of injury.

In 15 years as the Churchill athletic trainer, Paul Goetze said Hannah's is the first broken leg he has seen.

As she hobbles around school on her crutches, Hannah has noticed more athletes doing the same, pointing specifically to a girls cross country runner with a stress fracture and a volleyball player with a severe ankle sprain.

"It seems like half the school is on crutches," she said.

One study, conducted by researches at Ohio State University, revealed that girls could be five times more likely than boys to suffer a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the knee. Another study, to be published this month in the Journal of Athletic Training, found that girls are more susceptible to concussions.

Part of that might be explained by anatomical differences: The muscle and bone structures of girls generally tend to be less developed than that of boys, Goetze said. Researchers continue to investigate other potential causes, though theories abound.

"There are various reasons," Goetze said. "Girls' hips are wider than guys'. Girls' muscle balance might be off, where their strength ratio between the quad and hamstring might be more imbalanced. ... At the knee joint, the joint base might be smaller in girls, so the two bones can push together and when they turn it's like a scissor action. That's why they get more ACL injuries - the top of one bone rubs on top of the other bone.

"They have all those things that go against them."

Dr. Thomas Peterson, a sports medicine specialist at the Eugene Sports Medicine Center, said he increasingly is treating more girls with sports-related injuries; most common are knee and ankle injuries, particularly among soccer players.

Injury prevention is not an exact science, Dr. Peterson said. Awareness of certain injury risks is a first step.

Goetze said girls are hitting the weight room more and performing a variety of exercises to specifically strengthen leg muscles. Coaches are also better educated, knowing the benefits of a proper warmup and stretching techniques, he said.

Road to recovery

Hannah's fracture happened at South Eugene High School's turf field, about 12 minutes into Churchill's second nonleague game of the season. Hannah recalls dribbling with the ball, losing possession, then planting her right foot in an attempt to suddenly change direction.

"There was no collision or anything," she said. "I just stepped and people say it looked like my body didn't really follow. I kind of twisted, I think, and then I heard this big pop - and I was on the ground."

"Pop."

The sound jolted Dasher, who estimated he was standing 10 to 15 feet away from where Hannah's small, 5-foot-3, 112-pound body fell. A former emergency medical technician, Dasher could see immediately what had happened.

"It was a clean break; there was an obvious deformity," he said. "It was close to a compound fracture."

He rushed to Hannah's side and called 911 on his cell phone. She squeezed his calf as he said a prayer.

Hannah remembers seeing her teammates, as well as South Eugene's players, huddled together, praying.

Paramedics arrived about 10 minutes later, and they reset her bone on the field, creating another awful, screeching "pop" that shook up both teams enough to have the rest of the game cancelled.

"She was an absolute champ," Dasher said. "You couldn't believe the amount of pain she dealt with. I've seen that injury with boys, and you just have to restrain them so they're not hurting themselves more. ... She was tough as nails."

At Sacred Heart Medical Center, Hannah had a two-hour surgery the next morning; surgeons inserted a titanium rod that ran from her hip to her knee. It will likely be there the rest of her life.

Her doctor told her she would be on crutches for eight to 12 weeks; she's already eager to toss those aside. It could be worse.

"At least it's not a wheelchair," she said.

There's no cast, just six one-inch scars at three different areas on her leg, entry points where the surgeons inserted the rod and screws.

She's able to put some weight on her leg already. While sitting, Hannah regularly crosses her left leg over her right knee out of habit, drawing a disapproving look from her mom. But Hannah keeps crossing her legs, and she keeps pushing forward with an ahead-of-schedule rehab.

"It's pretty remarkable that she's walking like that only three weeks after the injury," Goetze said last week.

She's expected to be able to start running again by January, when, as a competitive equestrian, she also hopes to start riding her horse, Jersey Devil, again.

Less than a month after the injury, Hannah is in good spirts. She credits her faith and the support from friends, family and opponents (the South Eugene girls were the first to send flowers).

Two weeks after the injury, she returned to school, taking a full load of classes (though she had to drop P.E. and drama). Nine days after the injury, she returned to the sideline for Churchill's game against Springfield and received a warm ovation from the crowd, and she now accompanies the team on road trips.

"Even though I'm on crutches, it doesn't feel that bad; I can move around quite a bit," she said. "It's nice to see people. It's nice to get in a routine again."

At the Mirsepassi's Bailey Hill Road ranch, the gravel driveway extends past a large white fence some 150 yards up to the house, and Hannah's routine for the time being includes hobbling back and forth on the path.

It's her main exercise these days, and her mom is concerned she's out there too much, too soon.

As she hobbles up and down the driveway, you can imagine Hannah picturing the moment she's able to run past the white fence at a healthy sprint; or the moment she's able to hop back into driver's seat, back onto the main road.

You can only hope her leg returns as strong as her will.