Professional Dancer Resumes Career and Active Lifestyle After Care for Severe Ankle Injury

Kristi Dreyer McInerney is a dancer, dance instructor and dance studio owner. So when she fell and severely broke her ankle, it could have been a career-ending injury, not to mention the end of her extremely active lifestyle.

But it wasn’t long before she was walking miles a day in Italy, surfing in the Azores, doing yoga, performing on stage and teaching dance and fitness classes again at her Allentown studio." 

She made quite a comeback, thanks to the team at Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute, the region’s leader in orthopedics.

Dreyer McInerney is the owner of Dance Fusion Performing Arts Studio in Allentown. She was at home – at the top of her stairs – with an armful of new curtains for the studio. A piece of the drapery got underfoot and she fell.

She was already a patient of Chelsea Evans, DO, a primary care sports medicine physician with LVPG Orthopedics and Sports Medicine, so Dreyer McInerney called right away for an appointment. “They got me in to see her the same day,” Dreyer McInerney said.

Dreyer McInerney had suffered a “bimalleolar equivalent” ankle fracture, meaning her fibula (one of two bones in the lower leg) was broken and she also had an injury to her deltoid ligament, making her ankle unstable.

“Dr. Evans told me I needed surgery if I wanted to dance again,” Dreyer McInerney said. “I needed a plate and screws. A cast was not going to do it.” After some discussion, lots of questions, and even a few tears, Dreyer McInerney agreed.

Dr. Evans recommended John Stapleton, DPM, Chief of Podiatric Surgery at Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute, and a foot and ankle surgeon, who works in the same orthopedic office. Within a short time he was in her exam room explaining the surgery and her expected recovery time. And, he had an opening four days later.

Many people who suffer serious orthopedic injuries wonder what effect it will have on their lives. Dreyer McInerney, 48, of Emmaus, was adamant that she needed to make a full recovery. “I’m an active dance teacher and I’m still performing too,” she says. “Every day I am leaping and turning and jumping, and I also love hiking and paddle boarding. I need to do those things to feel like I am alive.”

 “We try to steer our patients toward the treatments they need so they can get back to what they enjoy as quickly and safely as possible,” Dr. Evans says. “At the end of the day, our goal is to get you back to where you want to be. We want you to be able to live your best life.”

So after her surgery, Dreyer McInerney followed Dr. Stapleton’s advice to keep the weight off her leg during her recovery. She spent two weeks in a soft splint while the surgical wound healed, then four weeks in a cast and another four weeks in a boot – all the while chomping at the bit to return to her work in the dance studio, and to get back to activities with her family.

As soon as she was cleared to do so, Dreyer McInerney began walking. She did short distances at first and then walked longer and farther. “Walking was my best therapy,” she says.

By mid-May – about 10 weeks after her surgery – Dreyer McInerney was walking around New York City, treating her staff to two Broadway plays as a thank-you for their work to keep the studio running while she recovered.

Then, in mid-June, she danced – gently – in a recital. Later that month, she was touring Rome, Venice and Tuscany on a 10-day vacation with her fiancé, John. “We walked a lot, and I needed to ice a lot. But ice is really hard to find in Italy!” she recalls.

In August, she could be found surfing in the Azores, an island chain off Portugal. Her family takes a vacation every summer, she says, and she wasn’t going to let her accident recovery stand in the way this year.

“We did the longest, tallest hikes we could,” she says. “Then, my 10-year-old son wanted to take a surfing lesson, and so I did that too,” she says. “I didn’t do too badly for my first time on a surfboard.”

Come September, Dreyer McInerney felt well enough to return in earnest to teaching dance, including leading an adult hip-hop class through an hour of bouncing, hopping and jumping. “You can’t inspire adults to want to move in a dance class unless you move yourself,” she says.

Dreyer McInerney has been dancing since a very early age. Her dance and choreography credits include the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Olympics. She judges she is about 95 percent recovered, and believes she is not far from 100 percent.

Looking back on the experience, Dreyer McInerney says hers was “a best-case scenario outcome.” She credits everyone at the Lehigh Valley Orthopedic Institute, including her physicians who listened to and fully understood her recovery goals, and then did their utmost to help her achieve them.

“Everyone was so great,” she says. “Every single person reassured me that I would be able to get back to where I wanted to be.

“I never had any doubt that I would recover from this,” she says. “I never thought for a second that I wasn’t going to dance again.”