When I heard that Washington Redskins WR Brandon Banks had a chest tube inserted following a weekend stabbing (The Post), I immediately thought that he had a collapsed lung. Some initial reactions seem very concerned and while a collapsed lung is certainly bad, it isn’t something I would consider too scary.

I have experienced a partially collapsed lung (pneumothorax) before, the left one, on several occasions between my 18th and 21st birthdays. The cause was not a knife wound though, it happened spontaneously do to a bleb on my lung “popping”– apparently being tall and skinny made me vulnerable. I had at least 3 incidents (with blunt and “stabbing” pain at the same time and a shortness of breath) before I ever got it diagnosed. The first three occasions were self-correcting within a few hours. The fourth one did not heal by itself though. I walked around with it for about ten days — I even went skiing with a partially collapsed lung. When I finally did see a doctor, I was admitted to the emergency room, given a chest tube (which is like having a headphone jack stuck in you) and released the same night. The dressing that was left one was more annoying than the actual chest tube. The final incident, while I was visiting THON during my junior year, required a 3 day hospitalization, but no chest tube. I elected to have a surgery to remove blebs on the lung the following summer and have not had an recurrence since then, though pleurisy (inflamed lung lining) has popped up occasionally if I’m using my chest too hard i.e. bench pressing.

So, a collapsed lung is not a lot of fun, but also something that can be dealt with a couple of ways. It is the kind of injury that some have even played through — maybe not kick returners or others who need to rely on their speed, but I’m pretty sure Don Merideth did in a championship game. The actual stab wound and how/why he got it is a bigger concern than the collapsed lung.