Rodeo Doctor: ‘Very Few Nights We Don't See a New Injury'

Orthopedic surgeon has served the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo for 24 years

The course of Doctor Tandy Freeman’s night at the rodeo is determined eight seconds at a time.

As the medical director of the Justin Sports Medicine program, Freeman is responsible for the well-being of the near-nightly rodeo contestants at the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.

Each time the chute opens, and a rodeo pro attempts to last eight seconds on a bucking horse or bull, Freeman looks on from his vantage point below the bleachers of the Will Rogers Coliseum.

“A good night for me is watching rodeo and going home early,” said Freeman on a night that would not prove to be a good one.

“You got enough people going out and getting on and competing against animals that are bigger, stronger, faster than they are you’re gonna have injuries,” Freeman said. “We have very few nights where we don’t see a new injury.”

Freeman, an orthopedic surgeon, has 24 years of experience treating rodeo-related injuries.

Common injuries include ligament tears in the knee, shoulder separations, strained muscles and broken bones, according to Freeman.

The injuries can become far more serious, as well.

“The same sort of things you see in motor vehicle accidents,” Freeman said, referring to injuries spine fractures, intra-abdominal and chest injuries and punctured lungs.

“It’s the whole gamut of trauma,” Freeman said. “If it can be done to the human body it gets done sooner or later.”

Rodeo professional Jake Brown knows that as well as anyone.

“Hopefully, if things go well, I won’t be sore at all,” Brown said, shortly before a recent ride. “But you never know – it’s the rodeo.”

Brown is a professional bareback rider who lives in Cleveland, Texas.

After years spent traveling the country and earning his living from rodeo riding, Brown has suffered a laundry list of significant injuries.

“The most recent [injury] I had was a torn ligament in my thumb,” Brown said. “I had to have surgery on it and was out three months of the summer last year.”

“But then I’ve had a broken arm, broke my back – my L3 vertebrae there. Shoot, I broke my legs – both of them. And I’ve been beat up quite a bit,” Brown said with a smile.

Brown escaped any serious injury on his recent night in Fort Worth, but not every rider was so fortunate.

Freeman attended to a rodeo rider who he suspected suffered a broken fibula as the result of a fall, and another who aggravated a lower back injury.

“Rodeo athletes, like athletes in any other sport, are passionate about what they do. They love what they do,” Freeman said about what he likes about his patients. “It’s certainly a bad thing that I have to [treat them.] Hopefully I bring something to them, though, that represents the possibility that things are going to be better in a short while.”

Contact Us