Houston Outlaws DPS player Dante ‘Danteh’ Cruz was conspicuously absent from his teams two OWL matches on the last day of week 2, and he’s let fans know the reason he was gone was for emergency testicle surgery.
Danteh is as veteran a player you’ll find in the Overwatch League, he’s been around since the inaugural season. But, on April 25 Outlaws fans found themselves wondering why he was nowhere to be seen.
After the matches for the day wrapped up, the 22-year-old American pro tweeted out a picture of himself in hospital gear and congratulated his team for the wins, which explained why he was gone, but didn’t let on about the surgery he’d just had.
had to get an emergency surgery today but our team still got the 3-0 GOOD JOB EVERYONE IM SO PROUD OF U GUYS 😍😍 pic.twitter.com/mH1QV2gaFX
— danteh (@danteh) April 25, 2021
On April 26, danteh put out a TwitLonger with more details about why he missed the Outlaw’s final games of the season: for an emergency operation on his testicles.
After a Sunday morning bike ride the American pro noticed something wasn’t quite right down there with some swelling going on. Trying to tough it out and play though, he soon began getting sick on the way to the Houston facility for the days matches.
“Honestly I probably would’ve still tried to play our match if I had covid or something (from my home setup of course),” danteh explained. “I really, really hate missing matches and putting other people in sh***y situations.”
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Once he and the Houston coaches determined that yes, something was wrong, Outlaws General Manager and retired OWL player Matt ‘coolmatt’ Iorio went with danteh to the ER and — don’t ask us how — somehow knew just what was wrong with him.
“Based off what I told coolmatt he predicted it was testicular torsion and later we found out he was correct,” danteh said, possibly giving the strangest endorsement of an esports staff yet. “Really really not fun. The pre surgery time was absolute hell, it felt like someone was squeezing my balls and my whole groin was hurting.”
Now, “emergency testicle surgery” are some of the last words any male on this planet wants to hear, but the Outlaws DPS player seems to have handled it like a complete champ and made it through unscathed.
“Luckily everything went well and we caught it early enough so I don’t have any sort of damage down there,” danteh explained. “I am really happy and grateful that this is over with, just gotta get through the recovery process which is going great so far.”
Exactly when danteh will be returning to play for the Outlaws is unknown, but everybody in the Overwatch community is hoping he makes a speedy recovery. Still though, this just has to be one of the most bizarre esports stories we’ve seen in a while.