Jason Caperna was taken away in an ambulance after badly injuring his knee while playing basketball on The Valley Season 3. The injury happened during Episode 8 at a local park, where he fell to the ground and clutched his knee after making one move on the court.
He quickly realized something was wrong. “No, I’m not. My knee’s f--ked. It popped out. Oh My God.... Can we get someone here fast? I retired from basketball for a frickin’ reason,” Caperna said as others moved in to help. A producer then asked, “Do you want us to call the ambulance right now? Or do you feel OK to be put in a car?” Caperna answered, “Probably ambulance, maybe,” and paramedics soon loaded him into the ambulance.
On The Valley After Show, Caperna later described the injury as a blown-out knee and said the damage felt immediate. “There was such a loud pop that I, like, heard it and felt it so loudly,” he said. “And then when I was on the ground, I looked down [and] my kneecap was in the wrong place.” He also said his kneecap and shin were “disconnected,” adding, “So, like, if I would roll one way, the kneecap would roll that way too. So, I felt the kneecap moving.... That’s why I’m like, there’s something weird here. So I couldn’t roll over.”
The injury carried extra weight because basketball was not supposed to be part of Caperna’s life anymore. Janet Caperna said he stopped playing about 12 years ago because his knees were hurting him, and she said he was 42 years old when it happened. “Jason knew he shouldn’t have been playing,” she said. Before he went out there, she added, “Jason stopped playing basketball like 12 years ago because his knees were hurting him. And before he left, I told him, I was like, ‘Do not show off.’”
The moment also fit into a broader picture of the season. Caperna had been playing with castmates at a local park, and the show has noted that he once played basketball in high school, in recreational leagues at Boston College and for several years after graduation. The Valley Season 3 airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on Bravo and streams the next day on Peacock.
The question now is not whether he got hurt — the ambulance answered that. It is how long a knee injury like this keeps him off the court, and whether the man who retired from basketball for a reason has finally reached the last game he was ever supposed to play.
