Dumbarton strongman’s amazing recovery after bicep tendon snaps

Feb 5 2010 by Marc Mclean, Lennox Herald (main ed)

A STRONGMAN who lifts weights with a donor tendon has reached the finals of the British Powerlifting Championships.

Darren McCarroll relied on a dead man’s body part to have his left arm pieced together again following a horrific injury in the Marinecraft Gym in Dumbarton.

The Alexandria man, who stormed to success in Saturday’s Scottish Powerlifting Championships, admitted he feared his weightlifting career was over until he had the revolutionary operation.

Darren, 43, said: “My bicep tendon snapped when I was doing a tyre flip preparing for a Scottish strongman event two years ago.

“It was agony. I just fell to the floor and was curled up in a ball for about a minute.

“My whole arm went black and blue and the bicep muscle had rolled up like a roller blind.”

Darren’s injury caused the biceps tendon to separate from the bone and, when this type of serious rupture occurs, the muscle cannot pull on the bone and certain movements can be weakened and painful.

He went on: “I had to have an operation involving an achilles heel from a dead man’s body. They told me what I would go through and I just wanted to go ahead with it.

“I was in plaster for two months and it took me another six months to strengthen my arm again.

“I had to learn how to stretch my arm and lift weights with it again because the arm basically wasn’t all mine.

“It is a bit strange and my strength is only about 70 per cent of what it used to be, but as long as I’m still able to train then I’m happy.”

Darren, who is president of the Marinecraft Gym and has been a member for 24 years, is now gearing up for the British Powerlifting Championships in Bath in April.

P36 – Report and pictures from Scottish championships.