SNAPPED SHUT : At Least for the Moment, Broken Bones Put Bengal’s Football Dreams on Hold

Had everything gone as planned, Tim Krumrie and his wife Cheryl would have checked out of their Honolulu hotel today, mementos of a second consecutive Pro Bowl appearance stuffed in their suitcases.

There would be baby-sitters to pay in Eau Claire, Wis., relatives to see, friends with whom to discuss the events of Jan. 22, when Krumrie’s Cincinnati Bengals lost a Super Bowl game to the San Francisco 49ers.

Instead, Krumrie is waiting to check out of Cincinnati’s Christ Hospital, where the 274-pound nose tackle takes up considerable bed space while recovering from leg surgery.

Mementos? Try a set of crutches, a fresh supply of bandages and a scowl. Krumrie is going home, all right, but it isn’t exactly the triumphant return he had hoped for.

He wanted a Super Bowl ring. He got a freak injury instead. He wanted a trip to Hawaii and the Pro Bowl. Turns out an ambulance ride and hospital food will have to do.

You figure it out; Krumrie can’t. He did everything he was supposed to do on the play that snapped his left tibia and fibula--the lower leg bones--like dry twigs. If you were a coach grading his effort later on film, you couldn’t help but place a plus mark next to Krumrie’s name. It was perfect execution--except for the result, which was perfectly sad and sickening.

There in the first quarter, during the second series of the game for the Bengal defense, Krumrie crouched down into his stance, his eyes darting from Randy Cross, the 49er center, to the 49er backfield, to the rest of the Bengal defensive line. Krumrie was fine now. All the pregame jitters, all the nervousness were gone. Better yet, Cross or the two 49er guards were having trouble blocking him.

“I was feeling good,” Krumrie said from his hospital room. “I felt I was going to have a good game. I mean, I wasn’t getting killed or handled.”

Cross snapped the ball and lurched toward Krumrie. Krumrie absorbed the hit and quickly moved down the line, toward running back Roger Craig, who was making his way toward an opening. Craig wouldn’t have a chance.

At the last moment, Krumrie planted his left foot in the Joe Robbie Stadium turf and struck. The collision was a loud one. Craig, who isn’t tackled easily, tried to twist from Krumrie’s grasp. Krumrie held on, his body going one way, his foot, caught in the turf, going another way. Something had to give. Turned out to be his leg.

“I felt it snap,” Krumrie said. “I heard it snap. I knew that I broke my leg.”

Cheryl and the Krumries’ 4-year-old daughter, Kelly, were seated in the stands at about the 25-yard line. The play unfolded almost in front of them. They saw Krumrie hit Craig. They saw Krumrie remain on the ground, which is when Cheryl, who minored in athletic training in college, thought her husband had been knocked unconscious by one of Craig’s knees, which pump furiously during a run.

“He lay so still,” she said. “When they played the replay . . . I immediately knew the leg was broken.”

Later, in a failed effort to cheer Krumrie up, she told him: “At least you made the tackle.”

Dr. Robert Heidt Jr., the Bengal team physician and orthopedist, rushed onto the field and found Krumrie on his back and strangely calm.

“I broke my leg,” Krumrie said simply.

Heidt believed him.

“You never doubt Tim,” he said. “He knows his body. He knew not to move. He felt the snap. He felt the pop. And he felt the pain.”

Krumrie’s leg, said Heidt, was angled out “about 60-70 degrees.” It was enough to make even Heidt, who has seen his share of that sort of injury, “a little queasy.”

Heidt checked Krumrie’s pulse. He examined the leg and made sure it wasn’t an open fracture, which would mean the bones were sticking out. They weren’t. He squeezed Krumrie’s knee and ankle to see if there was any damage to the joints. There wasn’t. Then he gently held the leg and placed an air splint around it.

Krumrie was put onto a stretcher. Before he was wheeled away, several of his teammates moved toward him. “We’ll kick their butts,” they said.

Then Cross approached him.

“You’re a hell of a football player,” Cross said.

Krumrie nodded.

“That’s a class football player,” he said later.

Oddly enough, Krumrie was partly the victim of a patch of stubborn turf. Even early in the game, players were having difficulty planting their cleats in the loose, spongy grass. But this time Krumrie’s foot stuck, leaving him flat on his back and flat out of the game that mattered most to him.

“The doctors said my muscles were stronger than my bones,” he said. “It was one of those weird things. Nobody cut me. It was bizarre. It was weird. It would have been a great play for me. Craig was right there.”

Once in the Bengal locker room, Heidt made arrangements for Krumrie to be transported to a nearby hospital.

No way, said Krumrie, who clutched a tiny black-and-white television. He wanted to return to the sidelines after they stabilized the leg.

Cheryl, who had made her way from the stands, arrived about the same time Heidt was getting the developed X-rays of the broken bones. Krumrie told her to return to her seat; he’d be out later.

Heidt made a deal of sorts. No sidelines, but Krumrie could stay in the locker room until shortly after halftime. Then an ambulance would have to take him to the hospital.

Fair enough, Krumrie said.

Then it was time to stabilize the leg. Morphine would be necessary. One problem: The paramedics had the painkiller stashed away in a kit. There would be a delay.

Krumrie, tired of the wait, told Heidt to proceed.

“You and I would be screaming for morphine,” Heidt said. “He said, ‘Just get this done and take care of it.’ And we did.

“He’s one tough cookie, that’s all I can say.”

Don’t be fooled. High threshold of pain or not, Krumrie said the injury “hurt like hell.”

“But I could have been in shock,” he said. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t ask for any (morphine). I guess I was so excited about the game. The adrenaline was flowing.”

Once the bones were set, Krumrie sat back and watched the game. Later, someone sent down a large color television to replace the hand-held screen Krumrie had been using.

At the half, the score tied, 3-3, Krumrie became a cheerleader of sorts. As Bengal players stopped by to check his condition, he issued bits of wisdom or encouragement.

It wasn’t enough, of course. The 49ers won, 20-16, and who knows how much difference Krumrie would have made.

“A lot of people have said that to me,” he said. “But you can’t take one player and say, ‘He would have won the game.’ I thought David Grant (Krumrie’s replacement) did a wonderful job. I thanked him for holding up my part of the bargain. My teammates played their hearts out. I thought (on the 49ers’ game- winning drive) that we’d intercept a pass or make a big play.”

Krumrie checked into Christ Hospital the day after the game. On Tuesday, Heidt and Dr. Michael Welch operated for 3 hours. A rod, which runs the length of the tibia, was inserted into the bone. Two screws were put into the top of the bone and two more on the bottom. They’ll be removed in 12 weeks, at which point Krumrie can begin working out again.

There is no cast on the leg, only one large bandage “and a lot of little bandages,” he said.

And all things considered, Krumrie considers himself, in a way, lucky. Had fate really wanted to pull something on him, it could have snapped his knee ligaments and cartilage rather than a pair of bones.

At the moment, Krumrie is waiting for his discharge papers. Truth be known, he’s not crazy about hospitals. He’d prefer to be back in Eau Claire, where he could be with his family, including his 5-week-old son. Krumrie hasn’t seen him in almost 3 weeks.

And Krumrie could do without the publicity. At one point, hospital officials had to screen all calls. They also had to close Krumrie’s room off, what with all the Bengal fans trying to sneak in to extend their get-well wishes. As it is, Krumrie finds himself with about 500 cards and 40 potted plants.

“It’s a floral shop now,” he said.

Already Krumrie has begun a physical therapy program. He can do leg raises, ankle rotations and muscle flexes. When in bed, a machine flexes and stretches his knee to prevent atrophy. And sometime this week, Krumrie will be fitted with a custom brace.

Back home are all sorts of goodies. Krumrie owns seven Nautilus machines, a Jacuzzi, a pool, a sauna, a stationary bike and assorted free weights. In short, a health club awaits in Krumrie’s basement.

“It’s going to be a long road,” Cheryl said.

But not an impossible one. Heidt said the outlook is favorable.

“If the bone heals, God willing, he can go out and do what he needs to do again,” Heidt said.

Count on it, said Krumrie. He expects to return in time for the opening of Bengal training camp in July.

As for memories, the fewer the better. Krumrie doesn’t want to see another replay of the breaking of bones. He could also do without sympathy and pity. It happened, it’s over, time to move on.

So off he goes, on crutches and surely in pain. Some mementos.