Mariner's injury is reportedly so rare that it only happens in 0.1% of cases.
He will be in hospital in Sydney for at least another 2 weeks.
Our Doctor, Matt Hislop said:
“He will play again,”
“It’s just a matter of when we can do it safely and minimise complications for Deine down the line.
“It’s too early to put a date on that.
“I won’t make a comment on whether he comes back this year because you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. If it goes exceptionally well we will be accused of rushing him back, but right now Deine is a week-to-week proposition.
“Early indications are promising, but the problem when you have that compartment syndrome and you open it up ... I don’t know if you have seen pictures of that type of surgery, but it’s pretty brutal.
“When we said it was limb threatening, we weren’t joking.”
Dr Hislop explained the procedure required to save Mariner’s career and said he had never seen such an injury in the NRL.
“It’s a cut from your hip down to your knee,” he said.
“The problem is the muscle bulges out because it is under pressure.
“The issue is you have to close it up again.
“You can’t close it up too soon, otherwise it will just happen again. For the next week or week-and-a-half, they will monitor Deine, he is getting awesome treatment in Sydney and they are giving us regular updates.
“What they will try and do is close it up piece by piece, every few days.
“It’s like cutting a sausage and all the innards fall out, then trying to tuck all that back in and stitch the sausage skin back together again.
“It’s pretty uncommon.
“I did a search of case studies and found a couple in rugby around the world where they had similar injuries, but the difference with Deine is he has really big quads to start with.
“I have never seen a thigh compartment syndrome in a rugby league player.
“I see a lot of it in my clinical practice, but this variety of it is an emergency and if you don’t get surgery within five or six hours of its onset, then the muscle can die and that’s irreversible.
“He went to bed OK and within an hour-and-a-half he was in agony.
“It was less than a 0.1 per cent chance of happening, so it’s extremely rare.
“He is getting more surgery over the course of the week.
“The plan is to send him home once it has all closed up, so it’s going to be one to two weeks before he comes back to Brisbane.”
On Tuesday morning, his fiancee, Grace, thanked the rugby league community for its overwhelming support after enduring a “really tough few days” by Mariner’s bedside.
“Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your beautiful messages,” Grace posted on social media.
“They’ve meant more than I can put into words.
“He’s taken the time to read every single one and truly felt all the love and support around him.
“It’s been a really tough few days but he’s on the road to recovery.”
Mariner’s manager Dixon McIver said:
“I’ve spoken to Deine, he is in high spirits. He is hoping to come back but you never know with these things. We’re all just supporting him and very thankful to the Broncos and the doctors.”
