I've no idea how serious this sort of thing is but apparently Gronk took a hit last night against the Seahawks and it may have resulted in a punctured lung...!
NFL.com - Gregg Rosenthal
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He's already up to 68 medical procedures in his career. If this one now somehow requires surgery...
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Madden you devil you..
These are all freak injuries.. but still its piling on a lot.. i wonder how long he will last.. -
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"Punctured lung", in this instance, is kind of a misnomer.
The media has been very wishy-washy on this. Probably because they themselves had conflicting reports.
My guess is he did have a partially collapsed lung due to the hit from Chancellor. Basically, the lung suffered trauma and leaked some air into the chest cavity. When this happens the air pressure inside the chest cavity becomes positive, rather than negative, and the lung can't fully inflate. If the pneumothorax (air trapped between lung and chest wall) doesn't resolve on its own then a chest tube may have to be placed. Sounds like this was a very small pocket of air and it's resolving on it's own. Some people suffer this from coughing too hard. Others, mainly tall, skinny, males, have this happen without any sort of outside influence.