Swimmer at Masters Doesn’t Let Hip Injury Get in Way of a Good Race

The starter gives the call for the 200-meter breaststroke, a swimmer hands his crutches to a teammate and hobbles to his lane. None of the other swimmers take notice. They are used to seeing his limp.

The horn sounds. The swimmers hit the water. The race is on.

The swimmer with the limp, Ed Morgan, finishes last.

What do you expect? He has a broken hip, after all.

Morgan, 55, suffered the injury in May when he slipped on a gravel road during a trip to Joshua Tree National Park. Less than three months later, he is back competing for the Saddleback Valley Aquatics team. He still can’t walk without crutches, but he can swim.

Although he did not win a race Sunday in the the Southern Pacific Long Course Masters swim meet at El Toro High School, Morgan competed in 12 events, including two relays. He even managed to beat two swimmers in the 50 breaststroke by finishing finishing second in the 55-59 age group.

Not bad for a guy with a steel plate in his right hip.

“This (swimming) is a hell of a lot better than having therapy,” said Morgan, who has been swimming competitively for two years. “And it’s cheaper.”

In May, Morgan had been asked to lead a group of Boy Scouts on a rock climb at Joshua Tree. Morgan, a former scout leader, had made many such trips before.

On arriving at the park, Morgan got out of his car to signal to a van carrying scouts. One step later . . .

“There must have been some loose gravel, because I went down,” said Morgan, who lives in Mission Viejo. “I didn’t think anything was wrong at first. There were no cuts, no sharp pain. My pants didn’t even rip. Then I tried to roll over and I couldn’t. I knew I was in trouble.”

Morgan was treated at the Boy Scouts’ campsite and then driven to Mission Community Hospital in Mission Viejo. X-rays showed that the hip was broken.

“I was surprised, because I have had broken bones before, and this didn’t feel like one,” Morgan said. “The doctor told me I had three choices. Let it heal by itself, replace the hip or have a steel plate placed on it to help it heal properly. The plate was the best choice.”

End of Morgan’s swim season?

Hardly.

“I think Ed was back in the pool the first day the doctor let him out of bed,” said Pam Whittington, Saddleback Valley’s coach.

Said Morgan: “It wasn’t quite that fast. Maybe four or five weeks.”

Once in the water, Morgan is indistinguishable from the other swimmers, except that he’s usually bringing up the rear. Although the injury has not affected his swimming skills, it has slowed his pace.

In the 200 breaststroke, which is his strongest event, he badly trailed the leaders.

“The leg gives me some problems in that event because I can’t get the leg drive,” Morgan said. “I can still race, though.”

But, winning was never the motivation in the first place.

“There are swimmers here who will fly down to Australia to compete in the world championships,” said Morgan, a marketing representative for a manufacturing firm. “Not me. I’d rather take the money, go to Tahiti.”

Although Morgan plays down the competitiveness of the masters meets, he is still swimming with a broken hip. That, in itself, is one of the oldest cliches of athletics.

Playing injured.

You can’t get much more competitive than that.

Saddleback Valley finished eighth in Sunday’s meet, its highest finish in a regional event.

The San Diego Masters won the meet with 1,981.5 points. The South Bay Waves were second with 1,405, Industry Hills was third with 1,233, Las Vegas fourth with 1,142 and Santa Barbara fifth with 933.

Trey Small of Mission Viejo led Saddleback Valley with first-place finishes in the 30-34 age group of the 50 backstroke and 400 freestyle. He also had second-place finishes in the 1,500 freestyle and 200 freestyle.

Santa Barbara set a national record in the 800-meter freestyle 240-plus, in which four swimmers have a combined age of at least 240 years. Santa Barbara swam a 7:30.27, breaking the old record by more than 30 seconds (8:06).