"The other guy's foot peg went through Luke's leg as they crashed also leaving him unconscious. The leg was smashed and part of the bone went out through his motocross pants and his boot leaving him with a major compound fracture."
Foster was flown to Whanganui Hospital by the Palmerston North Rescue helicopter. He was taken in for surgery where surgeons placed a rod down inside the tibia from the top of his knee. Since his ankle was also smashed they needed to place a plate in so they could screw the rod to it. He was in hospital for a week.
"On release he was to be non-weight bearing for a minimum of 10 weeks. From there he could slowly start putting weight on his leg while using crutches so the movement would start to stimulate bone growth as there was a huge gap where bone was not growing down to meet with other bone," his mother said.
"He also ended up with a mass of scare tissue in the knee where they put the rod in which needed to be broken down by regular visits to physio. That was mainly Paul Duxfield. He was a huge support for Luke and did most of his rehab work."
Foster had monthly visits to the hospital where they took fresh x-rays and reviewed him.
After about 10 months Foster had the plate removed from his ankle as it was putting pressure on it as he walked. The surgeon's decided it was best to leave the rod in since his leg was otherwise healing well.
Foster had a full year off sport while he recovered.
"Because he didn't have any school sport, this gave him the opportunity to do some work experience at CRV Equipment in Whanganui. He was able to get a good reference from Vince Lockwood for future work opportunities due to this and he is waiting to hear if he has further work experience with Emmett Truck Stop as a diesel technician.
Foster began gym work to help rebuild strength later last year and when school resumed in 2016, he began training again with the school's track and field coach with Alec McNab.
The now 18-year-old was a winger for the WCS 1st XV rugby team and last season was named Back of the Year. Foster was also in the Whanganui U18 XV where he was named Team Player of the Year.
He has also excelled in track and field.
"He worked very hard on his rehab, played 1st XV rugby and this term has taken 0.5s off his 100 metre time to finish 4th in the senior boys, an event that had over 55 entries at the national secondary schools championships," McNab said yesterday.
"Had he had the start he had in round one I believe he would have won a medal. He ran a glorious second leg in the 4x100m in the Collegiate gold medal team at the weekend."
Foster appears to have taken the entire recovery exercise in his stride, but acknowledged it could not have happened without support around him.
"Thankfully, I had great support from my school team mates, Alec McNab, physio Paul Duxfield, my doctors and family," Foster said.
"It (the recovery) was painful at times, but I just pushed through it. The hardest part was no sport for a year."
