Melina Salter’s thoughts are blurry about what happened on Feb. 13, 2009. But she has no problem remembering exactly what happened last Tuesday.
That was the day she returned to athletic competition for Chattanooga Christian for the first time since that fateful day more than a year and a half ago when she tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee. And her return was a triumphant one as the CCS volleyball team defeated new District 7-AA opponent Signal Mountain — last year’s TSSAA Class A champion. The Lady Chargers are now 3-1 in the league.
Salter at least remembers it was at Notre Dame and early in the basketball game when she went down with her injury. She recalls having a few seconds of pain, then feeling the leg beginning to numb.
“I just thought that I twisted it,” said Salter, daughter of former CCS boys’ basketball coach Eddie Salter, who’s now a football assistant with the Chargers. “I was asking if I could play the second quarter. It only hurt a little bit when I walked on it. I thought it would be all right if I could just ice it a bit.”
She didn’t make it back for the second quarter. Instead she went to a hospital for X-rays. Ultimately CCS trainer Brianna Malloy put Salter through some tests and concluded there was a tear.