Palone to head home Tues.

Dave Palone was still in a Pittsburgh-area hospital Monday recovering from surgery to repair the multiple fractures of his upper right femur suffered in a race accident last week at The Meadows, but his wife Bethann said she expects her husband to go home on Tuesday.

“He is getting a blood transfusion today and they are going to check his blood in the morning,” Bethann Palone told harnessracing.com Monday afternoon. “He’s lost a lot of blood; that was the biggest bone in his body to break. They were hoping (his blood count) was going to regenerate over the past three days, but it hasn’t. It’s actually gone down.

Palone currently ranks third on the all-time dash list with 11,404 victories, and his injury ironically came nine days after the sport’s all-time leading money-winning driver, John Campbell, returned to the sulky after suffering a severely broken leg last October in a race accident at Woodbine.

“I was hoping that maybe in a couple days Dave will hear from John. I think that would help him,” said Bethann. “Dave said he wants you to thank everybody for their calls, thoughts and prayers.

“He’s doing well,” added Bethann, who is an occupational therapist by trade and will be able to help her husband’s recovery process. “He’s walking with a walker, although he’s not allowed to put any weight on it for six weeks. He’s allowed to do exercises with that leg. He’s lifting it up and bending his knee and rotating his ankle.”

As for Dave’s surgery to repair the femur, Bethann said, “He has a rod the length of his femur, two screws down by his knee and one large one up by his hip. His hip joint and knee joint are fine, it was just his femur that was fractured—in 10 to 15 pieces.”

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