Hitting a forehand is now something that Ishan Rastogi has had to adapt to due to his accident while handling magnets during a mechanical engineering internship where a part of his finger was ripped off. Rastogi can now play to his full abilities but it will always feel different. “Sometimes when I hit the ball the shock hits my nerves differently. It will never feel the same again so it hurts a little bit, but it’s not too bad.”
Starting his summer internship, senior Ishan Rastogi was excited to have the opportunity to pursue his goal of being a mechanical engineer, but after a major accident, he feared for what his future looked like. At an engineering camp over the summer, Rastogi lost the tip of his right pointer finger and fractured several others.
“I was scared initially because I thought I wasn’t going to be able to play any sports anymore or any of my normal functions,” Rastogi said. “It was a lot and took a mental toll on me since I’m a pretty active person and the injury limited me to where I couldn’t do much.”
Just a careless accident, Rastogi was playing with magnets when he nearly lost multiple fingers. Blood gushed everywhere, and shock filled him when he couldn’t see part of his finger.
“While holding these two big magnets, I put one down not realizing they were magnetized, and when I put the second one down it snapped onto my fingers,” Rastogi said. “I got a rush of adrenaline and tried pulling them out, when I pulled out my left hand I could see they were fractured and bleeding out, but on my right hand I couldn’t see a part of my finger.”
Recovering from his injury was a lot for Rastogi to process. The day he entered the hospital the seriousness of his injury became apparent to him, starting it off with seven needle injections.
“The recovery process was a lot of doctor’s appointments,” Rastogi said. “When I went to the hospital that day I had to get seven shots, four of anesthesia, and the others were antibiotics, tetanus shots, all of that stuff. When I finally went to the hand surgeon he said that I would be completely fine and that my finger function would be there and I would be able to do all the things I did before.”
Despite the various medical procedures and medicines, Rastogi’s biggest challenge was overcoming his mental block throughout his recovery and returning to the sport he loves. Tennis.
“The first time I got back on the court I had a huge mental block because I thought something was gonna happen to my finger,” Rastogi said. “My brain just wouldn’t let me hit the ball hard enough. Over time I’ve learned to adapt.”
Rostagi mentions how finding his place back on the court is still hard, but explains how it gets easier as each day passes. One of his biggest challenges has been how his nerves feel different in his finger. It has a different impact from the shock of the racket after hitting the ball.
“My nerves will never feel the same again,” Rastogi said. “I had to keep on playing to find my rhythm again, it was still a struggle, things are still normal, it is just different.”
Stepping into Rastogi’s senior season there were a lot of unknowns about his future and what this season might look like.
“I play line one doubles and line three singles.” Rastogi said, “I was afraid of how my injury was going to affect my season and my team.”
When head tennis coach Trey Bush heard about the accident, he feared for the team’s future, but most importantly Rastogi’s future.
“Ishan’s dad texted me and said he might not be able to play tennis for a long time,” Bush said. “We were most concerned whether he would be able to play tennis ever again because we didn’t know how bad the fracture was, if he had fractured the hand he might never [have been] able to play again.”
Rastogi still plans to pursue mechanical engineering despite his injury, and notes how he will be more cautious in the future. With all of the worry about the outcome of Rastogi’s situation, he’s just glad that his injury wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.
“Be grateful for what you have and make sure to be safe,” Rastogi said. “This injury wasn’t even that bad, at the internship I worked at, my mentor injured his arm really badly since he was in the army and it made me realize my finger was nothing compared to that.”
