WORLD record breaking water-skiier Scott Wintle will soon learn whether a hip injury has healed sufficiently for him to return to the water.
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Wintle, who returned from the World Disabled Water-Ski Championships in July with a gold and silver medal - and two new world records - broke a hip in August.
It was just a week after returning from the worlds at Skarnes, Norway.
It was an innocuous home accident which caused the break to the 46-year-old's right hip.
"It's a bit embarrassing," Wintle, a Wellington Point resident, said.
"You travel all over the world, competing in a high-risk sport like water-skiing, only to fall off your shower chair at home."
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It was only after a routine check-up that doctors noticed the problem. Wintle is a paraplegic, and was unable to feel the full extent of the pain, but he said he knew something was wrong.
"My leg was kicking around and I was sweating," he said.
He drove himself to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane. Surgeons inserted three screws and a plate.
"They are holding me together at the moment," he said.
"I stayed there the next two nights."
Three months after the break, he will find out on Monday how well the bones are healing.
Wintle said there was a risk that part of the bone would die if it hadn't healed properly.
"Then I won't have any bone connecting the hip to the leg," he said.
One of Wintle's new world records is 19.5 metres in the men's jump.
It eclipsed his old world record of 19.1m, set at Myuna Bay, NSW, in 2017.
The other was in the trick, scoring 1060 points.
Wintle said that, regardless of Monday's news, he would be in the water at Woodford on Wednesday, preparing for the next world championships at Bridgewater, Victoria, in 2021.
"I will just have to see how it affects skiing," he said.
He paid tribute to wife Eliza, who is an intensive care nurse, in helping with his recovery.
"I'm in good hands when I'm at home," Wintle said.
Wintle said it was the first time since his motorbike accident in Switzerland, which left him a paraplegic, that he'd been in hospital.
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