Armon injures knee
Coeur d’Alene High standout runner Michael Armon may never run again.
Armon, who captured the 5A state cross country title last year as a sophomore and followed that up by winning the 3,200 meter and 1,600 titles last spring, underwent knee surgery last week following a non-running accident at a summer camp.
During a break at the Nike Glacier Extreme Camp at Glacier National Park in Montana on July 27, Armon was skiing down a stretch of snow in his running shoes when his left leg locked up as he lost control on some rocks and dirt. He shredded his ACL and LCL and a major nerve.
He had surgery last Tuesday at the University of Washington. Doctors replaced his ligaments with ligaments from a cadaver, and he also underwent a nerve graft.
“My two surgeons told me I may never run again,” Armon said.
Armon’s rehabilitation will take a year. And even then, his ability to run again will depend on how well the nerve graft responds over time, he said. He will travel back to Seattle today for a checkup Wednesday.
Monday marked the first day of practice for the upcoming season. His teammates reported to practice, but Armon was at home.
Armon remains upbeat in spite of the fact that the odds appear long that he’ll ever run again.
“This is my biggest challenge ever,” he said. “I’m confident that I’m going to get better and come back. I might have a couple of battle scars on my left leg, but chicks dig scars.”
His parents have been pleasantly surprised by their son’s optimism.
“It’s going to take a miracle for him to run again,” Armon’s mother, Lauri, said. “He’s determined that he’s going to beat the odds.”
Armon said the accident occurred during a break near the end of a weeklong camp. He said he had roughed himself up on a ski run just prior to the accident.
“It was probably not the safest thing to begin with,” he said. “At one point I fell down and slid on my butt and scraped up my butt. I was shook up and should have stopped then.”
But his friends wanted to make one last run.
“I wasn’t doing anything different, but all of a sudden I started going faster than I did before,” Armon said.
Armon was at such a high elevation that he was five miles from the nearest vehicle. He had to be carried out piggyback style. He was taken to a hospital in nearby Whitefish before returning to Coeur d’Alene.
He’s hopeful of being able to run again because he had two of the top surgeons in the Northwest.
Armon has re-read Lance Armstrong’s book about his battle with cancer in his spare time since the accident.
“I’ve accepted that this is not my year,” Armon said. “There are some big negatives, but there are some positives too. I think I have every chance in the world of coming back.”