The Green Island No 8 experienced a season-ending injury in the 75th minute of the senior club rugby match against Dunedin on March 29, landing awkwardly in a tackle and breaking the tibia and fibula in his right leg.
"It’s not the best way to start a season," Dynes, 21, told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
"I heard a snap and looked back and saw that [my leg] was broken and, yeah, it was a scary sight.
"I let out a yell ... Everyone kind of stepped away and made sure that there wasn’t any trampling or anything like that."
The match was immediately called off.
The Green Island and Dunedin players and supporters formed a guard of honour.
"It was all the Premier boys, all the Premier Colts, the under-20s boys, and quite a few other Championship Colts boys as well — and they all still had their strip on from the games they’d played just prior."
It took nearly 80 minutes for the Hato Hone St John ambulance to respond.
"It was a blur ... to be honest — it went really quick.
"I had a real good team supporting me, a real good team. The Dunedin and the Green Island guys really helped me out.
"They did such a good job just comforting me and making me feel like it was all good."
Dynes underwent emergency surgery about 11pm the day after the game after being diagnosed with acute compartment syndrome.
"It’s when swelling in your leg gets a little too much and they need to cut it open.
"So they cut it open pretty much from my knee to my ankle just to let the pressure out."
Dynes said everyone involved — from the players to the ambulance staff to the surgical team — had been amazing.
"The tibia and fibula were pretty much shattered, and I have now got a titanium rod screwed into my tibia to hold it in place."
Dynes said he was taking the process slowly.
He hoped he would be fit and ready for next season, he said.
The next couple of weeks will involve a lot of recuperation, and Dynes, an apprentice builder, admitted "cabin fever" was starting to kick in.
But he had enjoyed a lot of visits from friends, team-mates and work colleagues in the past fortnight.
"You can’t go back in time and change things.
"So you should look forward and focus on the next step in the next job, and that’s just getting the leg right and, hopefully, getting it bigger and better."
As for the tackle that landed him in the situation, Dynes said it was "one of those things".
"When you sign up to play rugby, it’s a brutal game."
It was Dynes’ 30th senior match for Green Island, who snapped a 46-year drought last year when they won the club premier final against Dunedin at Forsyth Barr Stadium.
The opening match of the season was a rematch between the two finalists.
"I was more just shocked, yeah, at the time [of the injury].
"More shocked, more disappointed, just because it had obviously been a big preseason and it was the first game of the year, and it’s all over just like that.
"Obviously, it was definitely painful, but I think the emotions were taken out of it, to be honest."
