The proliferation of sports on television means that whether we like it or not, fans are going to get to see everything from a given game. Often, this is a good thing; who doesn’t like to see every Clippers’ alley-oop or Adrian Peterson breakaway run? What comes with the territory as well, however, is that sometimes we see the darker side of sports play out in front of us as well.
Over the last 25 years or so, there have been some truly horrific injuries across all sports. The cameras have been there to capture it all, whether it was Joe Theismann getting his leg snapped in 1986, Clint Malarchuk having his jugular vein severed in 1989, or Kevin Ware’s shin shooting out of his leg last weekend.
While these injuries are almost as hard to watch on TV as they are to endure in person, they’re incredibly well-documented given cameras’ ability to capture everything and the internet’s ability to never forget anything. These are the Most Devastating Injuries in Recent Sports History.