Wayne's Story: ‘Connecticut Orthopaedics preserved my career’

Video Transcript

I’m a firefighter in New Haven, it’s a part of who I am. My father was a retired firefighter, my uncle, retired firefighter. I grew up in New Haven my whole life and it’s just good to give back to the community.

I had all my gear on, and we were about to respond to a call when I took all my weight to go shift and push up and get up on the fire apparatus, I felt like I got struck by lightning.

They found out that I ruptured the disc, and when I ruptured the disc it landed on my nerve. The doc told me that, with the injury that I had I would have to retire, because if this got any worse it could really impinge my nerve and it could cripple me. I decided to have the surgery to preserve my career.

After about a month of having the surgery, I started getting back on track. It’s been about five months now and I feel a lot better.

When I first got there, I saw it, I was like, ‘wow’, everything is here, you’ve got everybody right there to talk to each other as far as your progress and what needs to be done. I think it’s a lot better that way.

After the first week or so, I couldn’t wait to get back there to finish rehabbing. All the people there, they were great. They had me lifting weights, doing firefighter activities, almost like simulating being a firefighter.

They’re genuine, you could tell. You go places sometimes and people act like they care, but here you can just tell the genuineness in the people that they really want to get you back to your normal state.

As far as how I feel now to how I did when it first happened, it’s like night and day, and I give a lot of credit to the people at Connecticut Orthopaedics who made that happen.