As a result of continued blood flow issues that led to Coach Prime amputating two of his toes, the Colorado Buffaloes’ head coach is now at risk of losing his entire left foot, according to a recent meeting with his medical team that Prime’s crew released to YouTube.
“You just have to understand what the risks are, so things can cascade,” Dr. Donald Jacobs, a UCHealth vascular surgeon helping to advise Coach Prime on his foot. “He could lose the foot. I mean, it’s a risk.”
In the video, Dr. Max Wohlauer, another vascular surgeon for UCHealth, advising Coach Prime on the situation, detailed the blood flow problems.
“When you saw the vascular surgeons in Mississippi, your blood pressure to your ankle was normal,” Wohlauer explained. “They checked the blood pressure in your ankle and compared it to the blood pressure in your arm and that was [at] one, so 100%. Since then, since 2022, which was the last time you saw them, it’s now [at] 66%. So those arteries they got opened … some of those arteries have shut down.”
“You can get them back open, but the chances of keeping them open are not very good,” Dr. Jacobs added on, when asked by Prime.
That lack of blood flow is also creating considerable problems for Coach Prime, who has lost some feeling in his foot and is also having to deal with near-constant pain.
“I don’t have feeling in the bottom of my foot, at all,” Coach Prime told his medical team. “I just want to know what we could do, because I want to do it this summer because when we get rolling, I’m not going to have time to do it.”
The video didn’t detail what procedures or solutions to the problem Coach Prime will choose to pursue, but we’re certain to learn more in the coming weeks, as CU’s head coach looks to address it before the start of the season.
