Charlie Mullins, the 2010 National Enduro Champion and 2011 GNCC champ, has been on the sidelines since injuring both of his wrists about nine months ago. The FMF/KTM rider felt his wrists were in good enough shape to ride at the end of last year, but he reinjured one of them at the Ironman GNCC and further aggravated both at the ISDE in Argentina.
We spoke with Mullins at this weekend’s national enduro in South Carolina and he spoke about his progress with the injuries and when he expects to return to the track.
“Basically once I got back from Six Days, I met with a very high-end hand specialist down in Charlotte,” said Mullins. “Basically my scaphoid, I re-broke it at the Ironman GNCC. I broke the screw in half. I didn’t even crash or anything; I just hit a braking bump. That was on my right wrist, which is the dislocated wrist, and he looked at both of them and he ended up doing a bone graph on my left wrist.
“Currently it’s healing but it’s just going really slow. He did the bone graph and put two screws in it so he gave it the best option for it to heal. Then on my right wrist, just after the first surgery it felt really loose and just a lot of bone on bone grinding and popping. It just wasn’t right. It wasn’t able to last three hours in the GNCC. He ended up doing a partial fusion on it. He had to take my scaphoid bone out completely and cut a couple bones and he stapled them together, cut a bunch of cartilage. It was a lot of trauma to that wrist.
“It’s been three months since the surgery and I’ve been going to therapy quite a bit and doing what I can to get it healed. The fusion is all healed; he said it’s all-good; it’s just working past the scar tissue and getting my range of motion and everything back.
“I think long-term, big picture, once my scaphoid heals and I get my right fused wrist back to where I feel it’s competitive I think it’s going to take a while to pick up where I left, but I think there’s some promise where I don’t think my career is ending or anything like that. It’s just a pretty tough hurdle I’ve got to overcome. I’m not going to lie; it’s been a tough nine months since I did this whole thing.
“I’m just kind of trying to stay in it and stay motivated. I think I’m getting close where I think it’s going to work and I feel confident. It’s just being patient and taking the time to let it fully heal. I really don’t know the timeframe when I’ll be back, but when I do come back I’ll be ready to be fighting for a win. It’s just going to take time and we’ll see how that goes.”
Mullins also talked about the range of motion in the wrist that was fused.
“Basically the partial fusion, the range of motion-wise I think it’s going to be okay. I had my wrist braces measured up and everything. All my stops on my wrist brace I’m able to meet those where I previously had it, and I was able to make it work then. Just going off that gauge and how far it’s come in three months the range of motion, I think it’s going to be okay. It’s obviously going to be limited. It’s not going to be a full functioning wrist, but therapy thinks it should be okay long-term. It’s just getting past the soreness and working through it. I think it’ll be just fine.”
Mullins added that his doctors thought they might be able to clear him to ride in six weeks, but Mullins wasn’t as optimistic and said he thought it might be as late as May.
