Yeah, I can see that!
Oversharing. That’s the answer.
My wife got hurt, had a doctor do a physical exam and said it was a total tear. She said it wasn’t particularly painful but there was a lot of swelling. Two years later she decided to get it fixed and the scope (pre-MRI days) showed it was only a partial tear so nothing was done. A dozen years later she was having other work done on the same knee and they discovered the ACL was gone. Some sometime between the initial injury and 15 years later the ACL tore completely and she was unaware of it. So the full tear couldn’t have been very painful.
Many years ago I tore my ACL playing volleyball and the pain was pretty much as Biggirl described. When I get surprised with a pain like that my reaction is to swear very, very loudly. There were 3 other volleyball games going on in this gym and everyone just stopped dead to see what the hell was going on. Then a woman ran over to look after me. I noticed she had a knee brace on. She said something along the lines of “I’m a nurse and I saw what happened, you’ve probably torn your ACL. I’ve done that too, and have had children, and let me tell you, the ACL hurts worse!”
I’ve never given birth, but I have torn my ACL. In the moment, it was not that painful. I was at a dog training seminar, and I planted my foot and turned hard, felt my knee clunk over and then fell to the ground. After that my leg was a noodle, so I knew I’d done something to it. ACL tear confirmed later, and many weeks of aching pain while it healed.
Oh, you’re right! It was too long ago; my memory is garbled.