TULSA, Okla. — Less than a week ago, Bassmaster Elite Series pro Greg Vinson was strapped in the back of an ambulance with paramedics watching his every move. “I don’t remember falling,” he says. “I just remember the paramedics working on me and my wife taking me back home.”
It was a Saturday night out with friends that took a turn for the worst. That night, in the bathroom of a Montgomery, Ala., movie theatre, Vinson suffered a concussion which nearly kept him out of this year’s GEICO Bassmaster Classic presented by GoPro.
“I remember feeling a little bit weird, and getting up from the movie, walking down to the restroom then suddenly feeling really flushed.” Vinson says that’s when he fell. After that, there’s no easy way to say this: the impact of the fall bruised the back of his head and sent his brain crashing into the front of his skull. Then came the paramedics and the hospital visits and the tests. The effects, neurologists have told him, will last at least several weeks.
“I considered a medical waiver,” said the sixth-year Elite Series pro. “But I didn’t pursue it. I couldn’t stand the thought of sitting on the sidelines if I felt that I could fish safely without jeopardizing myself or anyone in the boat with me.”
Before hitting the road for Tulsa, Vinson says he went through a gamut of medical professionals from family physicians to cardiologists and neurologists. All have told him it will take some time to heal. He’ll likely experience sporadic headaches for months or years, but Vinson says other effects of the concussion — like dizziness and confusion— are beginning to wear off. And during those tests, the angler says the medical community pinpointed the cause of his fall. “It’s actually triggered by a drop in blood sugar that happens when I’ve been at rest for a while and stand up rapidly. The movie was a chick flick, so maybe that’s why I was so at rest and so eager to get up quickly,” he jokes. “But I definitely won’t be at rest on the water. I’ll be alert and engaged.”
So Vinson will head out to practice on Grand Lake Friday, albeit a bit more slowly than usual. “I’m still being extremely cautious,” he adds. “I don’t expect to be able to fish at the pace that I normally would to start with. Getting to that point by tournament time is the main goal. Right now I am getting better at managing my energy and effort and just taking things one day at a time.”
After an agonizing second place finish at the 2012 Classic, Vinson isn’t going to let another agony stop him from chasing down a championship at Tulsa in 2016. “It’s so hard to get here,” he says. “I didn’t want to sit it out.”