Satoshi Mitsuda planned on spending his summer playing soccer in Boulder, Colo.

But an encounter with a Hawai'i boulder changed everything.

Mitsuda, who plays soccer for Boston College, was hiking on a trail on Mariner's Ridge when a boulder he was using as leverage came loose and hit him, breaking a bone in his shin and dislocating his left ankle.

Mitsuda and friend Richie Higa were trying to find a trail that extends past the normal end of the Mariner's Ridge trail.

"There was one point where we didn't know where the trail was," Mitsuda said. "I told him there was no trail, that it stopped. I told him to see if we could go around. While he went to check, that's when I tried to jump down."

The rock, which was the "size of four basketballs put together," hit his shoulder and "very slowly" rolled over his left foot.

Mitsuda's ankle was completely dislocated — "my foot was hanging off," he said — and his fibia was broken. His skin didn't break, and "the only scratches were on my shoulder, and it hit my calf, so I had some pretty deep scratches."

He yelled out to Higa, who was checking out another part of the trail.

"I was like 'Richie, I think I broke my foot,' " Mitsuda, a 2003 Punahou graduate, said.

When Higa first spotted Mitsuda, who had tumbled into the bushes after being hit, "I started laughing, because I thought he didn't get hurt. I thought that he just fell into the trees," Higa said.

Higa, a Mid-Pacific alum who is playing on the Boulder Rapids Reserve of the Premier Development League — the same team Mitsuda was supposed play for — then realized that, "it was bad, it was dangling."

Mitsuda said within four or five minutes he couldn't feel any pain.

"I think it was more of a shock to see that my ankle was completely dislocated," Mitsuda said. "I put (my ankle) back in myself, but it was dead. It looked nasty. The first thing I tried to do was move my toes, and I could, so I knew that was a good sign."

Higa piggybacked Mitsuda about 10 to 15 yards to stable ground, then tried to call the fire department for help. When Higa couldn't identify exactly where they were located, he had to run to the start of the trail.

While it usually takes about 30 to 40 minutes to hike the trail, Higa "was flying, I got down in 10 minutes," he said.

The firefighters couldn't maneuver up the mountain, so they sent a helicopter.

"I saw a helicopter whirring around, and they dropped two medics," Mitsuda said. "Then they dropped a basket, and me and this other medic got on. They were going to drop us at the ridge (at the start of the hike), but it was too windy."

The helicopter took them to the fire station next to Kaiser High School.

"It was actually really cold, that's the only thing I remembered," Mitsuda said.

He spent three weeks in a plaster cast after having surgery to put a metal plate in his fibia and fix the alignment on his ankle on May 22. He's now wearing an air cast, which will likely be removed this week.

Mitsuda said he will redshirt this season at Boston College, calling the injury a "blessing in disguise" because the time off from soccer will allow him to study for the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT). And he was able to watch all of the World Cup games.

He has another surgery scheduled for Aug. 17 to remove a pin from the plate in his shin. He will have the surgery in Hawai'i, then fly to Boston a week later.

"Once I get up there I'm going to have to rehab, and I'll be with the team as much as possible," he said.

His worse injury prior to this one was in high school, when he had a hairline fracture in the fifth metatarsal in his right foot.

Last season Mitsuda played in 12 games and recorded two assists for the Eagles. As a freshman in 2004, he played in 18 games, scoring twice with one assist.

It was "kind of a bummer," not to be able to play with the Boulder Rapids Reserve this summer, Mitsuda said.

"I was looking forward to playing in Boulder, especially because they are associated with the (Colorado) Rapids (of Major League Soccer)," he said. "It can give you a sense of what it could be like to play professionally."

Reach Leila Wai at lwai@honoluluadvertiser.com.