MIXED MARTIAL ARTS
There will be blood . . .
. . . And when there is, SR fight doctor will be there to clean it up
Dr. Gary Furness, a Santa Rosa general practitioner, works the Cage Combat Fighting Championships event at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds recently.
GARY CUMMINGSPublished: Monday, June 9, 2008 at 7:36 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, June 9, 2008 at 10:53 p.m.
Dr. Gary Furness’ first assignment of the night was a whopper. Alexander Trevino, a 150-pounder who trains in Middletown, had his nose broken by a punch in the third and final round of his mixed-martial-arts fight, and was bleeding profusely — on himself, on opponent Justin Farmer and on the mat. And Trevino was the fortunate one.
In a scene that might have been scripted for Hollywood, Trevino, on the short end of the blows and in desperation, rushed Farmer in the waning moments of the round. A split-second before the bell, he landed a flying knee to his foe’s head, and Farmer fell to the canvas like a statue, unconscious.
This was May 17 and Furness, a Santa Rosa general practitioner, was working the Cage Combat Fighting Championships event at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds as a fight doctor. He was alternating bouts with another physician, Dr. Happy Reynolds of San Francisco.
The doctors sit right next to the entrance, black bags in arm’s reach, and Furness was into the cage in a flash. He found Farmer face down and unresponsive. Furness’ first task was make sure the fighter was breathing. He was, so the doctor did not attempt to remove his mouthpiece.
After a minute that seemed much longer, Farmer regained consciousness. Where are you? Furness asked him. “In the cage,” the fighter answered obtusely.
What day is it? “March 21, 2007,” Farmer replied. Wrong month, wrong day, wrong year. Furness decided Farmer should visit a hospital immediately, so he motioned to a pair of EMTs stationed close to the cage, and they entered with a gurney.
As is often the case, the defeated fighter protested their ministrations and lobbied to get up and walk away.
“This one is my call, OK?” one of the EMTs said firmly.
They strapped him to the gurney, stabilizing his neck, and led him from the arena. He would travel to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital by ambulance. Furness then ambled backstage to one of two open areas that serve as combination locker rooms, warm-up pens and examination rooms. He looked at Trevino and quickly diagnosed a broken nose.
“That’s home-field advantage. I saw him yesterday,” said Furness, who had examined all fighters at weigh-ins a day earlier. “And his nose didn’t look like that.”
Furness filled out a post-bout evaluation form authorizing Trevino for medical care. The fighter wasn’t necessarily grateful; a nasal fracture brings an automatic no-fight period of 180 days. On the other hand, many combatants are uninsured, and use emergency-room visits to get care for chronic problems.
While Furness was looking at Trevino, Reynolds — Furness refers to her as “Dr. Happy” — was supervising bout No. 3. They alternated this way all evening. At a bigger show, say a UFC event at Arco Arena in Sacramento, there would likely be four doctors to divvy up responsibilities.
The knockout was the scariest moment of the night, but certainly not the only medical issue facing Furness. He had to deal with another broken nose, a heavyweight staggering from extreme dehydration, one 170-pounder whose head had been gashed open by repeated elbows, and another with a fractured bone in his right hand and a second-degree AC separation in his right shoulder, among other maladies.
Furness also had to drop a bombshell on Rick Cheek after the main event. A popular local heavyweight who trains with the Nor-Cal Fighting Alliance, Cheek was taken down early by Buddy Roberts and was choked unconscious briefly, only 53 seconds into the combat.
This wasn’t Furness’ fight, but he knows Cheek well, so he volunteered to go backstage and give him the bad news: Because he was officially knocked out, Cheek would be barred from any contact for 30 days, and from fights for 45 days — a schedule that jeopardizes a June kickboxing match in Jamaica.
Later, the sting of delivering that message would be tempered by good news. Farmer’s CT scan came up normal at Memorial; he would be released after 24 hours.
Quite a night, but nothing too out of the ordinary for Furness, an MMA fan who now has the best seat in the house for a regular string of events both large and small, and occasionally for traditional boxing matches, too.
Furness first became interested in the “fight game” when one of his clients, whom he had known since the kid was in the fifth ground, became a cage fighter in the early part of this decade. Intrigued, Furness gravitated to David Terrell’s Nor-Cal Fighting Alliance, and even managed Terrell for UFC 51 in 2005.
That became a conflict of interest when Furness officially applied to the California State Athletic Commission to become an on-site fight physician. Furness resolved the conflict when he withdrew his management ties.
He went through the same process all fight doctors navigate. For starters, he had to have an unrestricted license and staff privileges. He was then required to attend two ringside training clinics and work five events shadowing another doctor.
Furness has been doing this for about a year and a half.
Once at an event, the doctor must coordinate with the referees, EMTs and security staff. Most important is that they be able to communicate clearly in an emergency, and that the medical technicians have an unhindered path to the cage.
All cage combatants are given blood tests (for HIV and hepatitis B and C) and urine tests (for stimulants and steroids) leading up to the show. Before the fight, the doctor gives them one more quick exam. He checks their pupils for possible neurological defects. He looks at the nose, the hands, the wrist, trying to eliminate the possibility of a recent fracture. He searches the skin for open wounds.
During the fights, Furness is most concerned with excessive bleeding, concussion and swelling around the eye. He said he will stop a fight — California is one of the few states that give doctors that privilege, independent of the referees — if a combatant’s vision is impaired, even if the cut or bruise seems minor.
His decisions can be unpopular, of course. Fighters get bonuses for winning, so a lost bout is lost income. They’re usually willing to weather a little impaired vision or dizziness.
“I’ve been yelled at, cussed at,” Furness acknowledged. “But the two times it got really bad, within a half-hour they were back to apologize.”
Furness must also sometimes evaluate the effects of fouls, and this can be tricky. If a fighter is losing the battle and fatigued, he may exaggerate the impact of a foul.
Armando Garcia, executive officer of the California Athletic Commission, calls Furness “just fantastic” in his fight duties. Getting help from qualified doctors isn’t always easy.
“Physicians in general make a good living based on their hard work and getting licensed,” Garcia said. “(Working fights) doesn’t pay a lot of money. They have to leave their office and change appointments, and they’re not compensated as much.”
Furness doesn’t seem to care. He gets to watch a sport he loves and get to know its participants.
Still, his participation presents an apparent contradiction. Furness has devoted his life to curing the sick, healing the wounded and preventing misery in all its physical forms. And here he is, presiding at an event where healthy young men do their best to shatter one another’s faces.
He estimates that 90 percent of his fellow physicians are envious of his role, 10 percent disapproving. He understands the concerns of the latter, but does not second guess himself.
“It’s a very rough sport, but it has great value to those who participate and those who enjoy watching,” Furness said. “And I know the sport well enough to help them stay as healthy as they can.”
Not all of the fighters remained healthy that Saturday night. But at least they could be assured of having excellent medical care in their corners.
You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.
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