John
06-15-2009, 04:00 PM
An Essex businessman has discovered he has been walking around with a broken leg for 29 years.
Steve Webb, 49, broke his left leg in a motorbike crash when he was 20 but has now found it never healed, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Webb, a plumbing merchant from Dagenham, only discovered he still had the injury after it showed up on a hospital scan.
He had feared the leg might have to be amputated under the knee but instead he is about to have an operation to stretch the broken bone back together.
"I think it's extraordinary. Everyone tells me that having a broken leg for nearly 30 years is unheard of," he said.
"I've had trouble with my leg ever since the accident but I was repeatedly told the bone had healed so I carried on walking on it."
Five years after the accident he was still in pain. Doctors then found his leg was still broken so they put it in a metal plate.
Mr Webb had the metal plate for 24 years, then last year he suddenly had pains in his leg again. Scans showed an infection in the bone and when the metal plate was removed the bone was still broken.
He will now have a metal Ilazarov frame fitted around his leg and foot to stretch the bone 1mm each day for seven to nine months. Then he will be in plaster for a further three months.
He has been told the new procedure, which he will have done at Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, has a 99% chance of success.
Steve Webb, 49, broke his left leg in a motorbike crash when he was 20 but has now found it never healed, reports the Daily Telegraph.
Mr Webb, a plumbing merchant from Dagenham, only discovered he still had the injury after it showed up on a hospital scan.
He had feared the leg might have to be amputated under the knee but instead he is about to have an operation to stretch the broken bone back together.
"I think it's extraordinary. Everyone tells me that having a broken leg for nearly 30 years is unheard of," he said.
"I've had trouble with my leg ever since the accident but I was repeatedly told the bone had healed so I carried on walking on it."
Five years after the accident he was still in pain. Doctors then found his leg was still broken so they put it in a metal plate.
Mr Webb had the metal plate for 24 years, then last year he suddenly had pains in his leg again. Scans showed an infection in the bone and when the metal plate was removed the bone was still broken.
He will now have a metal Ilazarov frame fitted around his leg and foot to stretch the bone 1mm each day for seven to nine months. Then he will be in plaster for a further three months.
He has been told the new procedure, which he will have done at Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, has a 99% chance of success.