By Remy Tumin
Victor Adeboyejo, a forward for Bolton Wanderers, recovered from a hamstring injury this spring to play what his coach described as his best season yet for the English Football League One team. Then came the sneeze.
Adeboyejo, a 26-year-old from Nigeria, was set to play last Tuesday in a Bristol Street Motors Trophy game against Barrow but was sidelined with discomfort in his rib cage and back.
“Victor has been suffering with a nasty back injury, and a sneeze set it off,” coach Ian Evatt told The Bolton News. The injury came nearly two weeks after he was kneed in the back during a game against Charlton Athletic. “He was OK at the time,” Evatt said. “But then he had a pretty hefty sneeze. Now, Victor is a powerful boy, and even his sneezes are powerful.”
Evatt said Adeboyejo “felt a bit of a crack in between his ribs” and was sent for imaging tests to assess the injury. “We are hopeful it is just a cartilage or muscular issue,” he added.
Bolton Wanderers did not respond to a request for comment or specify a timeline for the player’s return.
Sneeze injuries are rare, but they happen from time to time, said Dr. Jordan Metzl, a sports medicine doctor at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York. He said that a sneeze was more likely to worsen an underlying injury — like a broken rib, an intercostal muscle strain or a nondisplaced fracture (in which broken bones do not move out of alignment) — than to directly cause a new injury. But it does happen, including to a patient of his who had ruptured a lumbar disc, he said.
Trying to hold a sneeze can also worsen the injury, Metzl said. He advised patients to be careful when they sneeze, especially with a broken rib.
“It sounds ridiculous, but it really is a real thing we see,” he said, adding, “It hurts like hell.”
Adeboyejo is not the first professional athlete to be sidelined because of a bizarre injury.
Last week, Croix Bethune, a midfielder for the Washington Spirit, injured her knee after she threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals game. She will miss the remainder of the National Women’s Soccer League season.
Sammy Sosa strained his back ligaments in 2004 by sneezing, rendering him unable to play for 15 days. In 2015, Lindsey Vonn was hospitalized after she hurt her thumb breaking up a fight between her dogs. Michael Jordan severed a tendon in his finger in 1999 while cutting a cigar. Glenallen Hill, an outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays, ended up with cuts and carpet burns after he tried to escape spiders in a nightmare in 1990. And in 1996, Bruce Walker, a defensive lineman for the New England Patriots, wound up with a chest injury while playing catch with a knife.
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