Basketball knee injury, please help!!

[arperioli]

Last night while playing basketball my brother drove to tha lane and preformed a 'hop step' while jumping off two feet and landing on both at the same time.. he instantly went down in alot of pain holding his right leg.. he laid on the ground for a while before he was willing to get up.. claimed he hurd a slight crack, or pop when he landed.. he could not put any pressure on the leg at all and had no ability to straighten or bend the knee at all whit out any discomfort.. he slept on it and i woke up at 5 am to check up on him and he had said he was up since 4 because he could not sleep or move in bed because of the pain of knee... this morning he claimed that the inside of the knee was very painful, MCL, as did the outside, he claims that he has no pain behind the knee or on the back side of the leg.. still unalble to put any kind of pressure on the right leg and has very little or no mobility, and is a good ammount of pain.. he has an MRI today at 4 but I'm here at work just looking for any kind of response.. A collegiate basketball player going into his senior year... stuff like this happens all the time, when i saw him go down i felt sick to my stomach because i knew it couldn't be good.. I'm hoping it's a sprain at worst, but i know that's the best case senario, am i wrong?? he is a strong kid in great shape, and has probably made that same exact move 5,000 times.. why would the knee give like that on one landing?? if this sounds familiar at all i would be greatful for any information regarding this.. thanks so much..

[Alla]

Again, Im not a medico, but the popping sound to me says ligament damage. The mechanism of the fall might give some clues as to which ligaments, if the leg hyperextended then I'd strongly suggest ACL might be invovled. I played netball for 20 years, thank god I was taught at an early age how to land properly from a jump. I tore my ACL by doing the smallest jump and landing in sweat on the floor, hyperextending and feeling the "pop". I wasnt even in the game at the time. At first we thought lateral ligament because that is where the pain was, but apparently you rarely tear a lateral without tearing the ACL and with an ACL tear the pain is often on the lateral side of the knee because of where the ligament fixes too the knee. A tear to the ACL will also cause instability in the knee and after the swelling subsides the knee will most likely (but not always) buckle as soon as you put pressure on it.
Hopefully the MRI will identify what he has done, but also make sure you find a good OS who deals with knees, as that is very important to getting the problem solved rapidly and well.
The knee may have given out as the leg was in a slightly different position from normal, wear and tear, any number of reasons. I gave up trying to work out why I got along so long without an injury just to have it blow out like it did..... sometimes these things just happen.

Hope you get it sorted out!
Cheers
Alla