Akil Mitchell of the New Zealand Breakers in the National Basketball League in Australia suffered one of the most gruesome and horrific injuries you can imagine on a basketball court.
It wasn’t a knee injury or broken bone, but something even more terrifying as he had his eye literally poked out of its socket. Fair warning that the video below, while only showing a brief second of the aftermath, is still quite awful and may make you never want to play basketball or do anything near anyone else’s hands ever again.
Mitchell was treated on the court and then taken directly to the hospital, but if there is good news in all this it’s that the initial reports are positive for him to make a recovery and he was released from the hospital with relatively minor damage to his eye.
“The early reports are very positive that the injury is not as serious as first feared,” Breakers GM Dillon Boucher told reporters after the game, per Stuff. “Akil’s immediate recovery has been such that he is being released to return home, but will undergo further medical tests tomorrow.”
Mitchell played his college ball at the University of Virginia, becoming a starter in his junior and senior years. His last year with the Cavaliers, Virginia earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament after winning the ACC Tournament, although the Cavs fell by two to Michigan State in the Sweet Sixteen. He bounced around the D-League for a couple seasons before joining the Breakers.
Hopefully Mitchell is able to make a full recovery from such an awful injury, and I also hope we don’t see this take place on the basketball court ever again because it’s now my greatest nightmare.
