North Dakota teen nearly loses leg after collision during hockey game in West St. Paul

ST. PAUL, Minn. – We know hockey is full of hard hits, but we’ve never heard of one of those hits causing a condition like this.

It landed 14-year-old Jackson Lubke in a Twin Cities hospital, and he nearly lost his leg.

Jackson grew up playing hockey. The Williston, North Dakota boy has played with some of the best teams in his state, winning a state title and bragging rights amongst his peers.

But while playing with an elite team in West St. Paul, his mother Jenni back in Williston got a call from her husband, Ryan.

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“‘Jackson’s hurt, he’s on the bench, looked like knee-to-knee contact.’ So I was like, ‘Oh, well ice it, he’ll shake it off and he’ll move on,’” Jenni said. “Then the game was over and Ryan’s like, ‘He is not shaking it off. They said he took a knee to his thigh.’”

Jackson says he did not think the hit he took was out of the ordinary.

“I thought it was just a dead leg, like when you get hit in the thigh and just it hurts a little bit and then it’s normal,” Jackson said.  

Jenni says it was the third call from her husband that let her know he had to be looked at.

“As the night went on it just got more painful and more painful, and Ryan called me and I said, ‘Take him to the emergency room,’” she said.

Jenni said doctors at Regions Hospital in St. Paul immediately gave them a diagnosis: compartment syndrome.

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“It’s where the tissue and the muscle swell up so much that there’s no blood flow or oxygen to the muscle and tissue, and it can result in amputation even if it’s not caught in time,” she said. “He said, ‘When I cut in I’ll know immediately if the tissue and muscles are OK by the color that I see.’ And so he said, ‘When I cut in I saw immediately it was healthy,’ so I was like thank God he is not going to lose his leg.”

Jackson endured three surgeries in five days. The last one was on his 14th birthday, Aug. 4. He’s thankful for the doctors at Regions, and his teammates who have provided support from the very beginning.

Jackson faces three months of rehab back home in North Dakota. Hockey supporters have set up a fund to help the family cover the costs.