A KICK to the knee from a steer had doctor’s trying to save young Limousin breeder Corey Evans’ leg earlier this year but nothing was going to stop him from attending the Royal Queensland Show last week.
The 19-year-old livestock agent with Aussie Land and Livestock, Kingaroy, was helping load a bought in Speckle Park steer onto a truck bound for a show in May when it kicked out, hitting Corey’s knee cap and throwing him backwards.
The impact dislocated his knee, broke his tibia and tore ligaments, leaving only his anterior cruciate ligament in tact.
Initially his doctors, who work with players from the Melbourne Storm, were just trying to save his leg when he was rushed to hospital but the future is now looking brighter and Corey is expecting an 18 month recovery before he can walk normally again.
After attending the Ekka for much of his life, there was no way Corey was going to let an injury doctors described as “worse than any football injury they had ever seen” stop him from watching his family’s team of five Limousin stud cattle and five led steers from competing in Brisbane.
While doctors were not obliging to see the teenager, who is only just putting weight on his leg again, on his feet for a week Corey came up with an alternative.
“I had to come on a (motorised) scooter,” he said.
It wasn’t all bad for the youngster though.
His motorised scooter doubled as a moving billboard with Corey strapping a corflute advertisement of their bull to the back of it during the event and he even climbed the stairs of the selling stand at the led steer auction on Wednesday to sell four head, some of which were from his former school, Kingaroy High.
He was also on hand to see their bull, Jen-Daview Mr Pinnacle claim the junior champion bull title in the Limousin ring on Friday.
So what happened to the steer?
“He is about to go,” Corey said.
“That was his first and last show.”