By John Johnson
BassFan Senior Editor
Byron Velvick said Monday night that he'll attempt to compete in this week's Basssmaster Elite Series event at Lake Havasu despite a fractured vertebra he incurred in a boating accident on day 2 of last week's tournament at the Sacramento River. He's been fitted with a back brace and said he was told by spine specialists in Las Vegas that he must withdraw if he feels any pain or numbness in his lower body.
He said he'll heed that command – he plans to launch his boat today for the initial day of practice, but will call tournament director Trip Weldon and pull out if he feels any discomfort.
"We're already here – this tournament is right in front of you and I really don't want to miss Havasu," said the 50-year-old veteran, a former southern Nevada resident who's achieved some of his biggest career highlights in the Desert Southwest, including a WON Bass Western Classic win at Havasu and two WON Bass U.S. Open titles at Lake Mead. "There isn't time to go to all of the doctors and get all of the bad news. I'm going to show up there and see how I feel at practice, and if there's 30-mph winds on the first day (of competition) I won't go out, or I'll trolling-motor out to the buoy line and literally fish right there.
"(Upcoming) events like Kentucky Lake and the Detroit River are real longshots because I can't fish places where it's impossible to get out of the wind and I can't be running big rivers. But at Havasu you can get out of the wind – you can get in the London Bridge channel or the pockets where it doesn't blow."
Wake Became Launching Pad
The accident occurred last Friday as Velvick was returning to Sacramento for weigh-in after spending the day fishing in the California Delta. While traveling about 65 mph, his boat hit one of several swells produced by a large pleasure craft and was launched several feet in the air.
Both Velvick and his marshal were injured upon impact with the boat after it returned to the water. The marshal suffered a broken arm and Velvick, who thinks he may have landed on his tailbone on the unpadded area between the seats of his Triton, incurred a minor fracture of the second lumbar (L2) vertebra in the lower spinal column.
Velvick's injury was diagnosed at a hospital in Oakdale, Calif. He flew to Las Vegas on Sunday, and on Monday he visited specialists at the facility where the spinal-fusion surgery that caused him to miss the 2011 season was performed. He returned to competition in 2012, but also sat out 2013 due to a recurrence of pain.
His previous issue was much higher in the spinal column and he said he was told it had no bearing on what resulted from last week's accident. When he finished 2nd at Lake Guntersville last month, he spoke about how good it felt to fish without pain for the first time since 2009.
Now he feels fortunate that he's not paralyzed from the waist down. He was told that he would've been had his spine been placed under just a few more foot-pounds of pressure on Friday.
"It was a scary deal – the scariest I've ever been through," he said. "I didn't have feeling in my legs for 10 or 15 seconds, and I was pretty close to having the feeling never come back.
"If the fracture had gone another half-inch through my spine, it would've severed my spinal cord and that would've been it. I get the creeps just thinking about it."
Won't Pop the Pills
Velvick has been given pain-killing medication, but said he won't take it this week unless he withdraws. He doesn't want it to mask any dangerous discomfort he may feel while in the boat.
Regardless of what occurs at Havasu, he'll be back in Las Vegas next week for more tests and treatment. The surgeon who performed his earlier operation will have returned from a trip to China and wants to examine the angler himself, as well as order additional X-rays.
Velvick will wear the back brace for at least the next 8 to 10 weeks, regardless of whether he's fishing.
"The brace is a huge help," he said. "It's like a very hard girdle that goes up to your ribcage and it makes you feel like Iron Man.
"Still, I won't (compete at Havasu) if I can't. I've got a 4-year-old daughter who doesn't want to play with daddy while he's in a wheelchair, and that almost happened Friday."
