It's been a rough stretch for Ben Mintz. What started as a freak accident on a small flight of stairs turned his ankle into the most talked-about body part at Barstool, complete with a wheelchair, a swollen foot nobody wanted to see, and a hashtag that's basically become a company mantra.
The update that started it all — Mintz in a wheelchair at home, foot swollen and discolored on the floor beside him.
That clip is not for the faint of heart. Between the wheelchair laps around his apartment and the piles of laundry he clearly hadn't gotten to, it painted a pretty grim picture of life on one working foot. Big Cat summed up the vibe from the office perfectly.
Big Cat's reaction to just how thoroughly the injury had taken Mintz out of commission.
Never has a broken ankle taken a man out so thoroughly
That's not hyperbole from a guy watching from a distance, either — Mintz spent days off the grid, and the ankle turned into a running storyline across the building well before he ever showed his face again. So when word got out that he was finally coming back into the Chicago office, it wasn't just a quiet return. It was an event.
Mintz gets wheeled through the Chicago office to a room full of clapping coworkers before standing up on his own.
The clip says it all: a coworker in a Golden Bears cap pushing the wheelchair, a hallway packed with clapping coworkers, and Mintz eventually pulling himself up to take a few steps unassisted while still gripping the chair. It's the kind of moment that turns an injury into a bit and a bit into a full-blown company institution — #MintzyStrong isn't just a hashtag at this point, it's basically office canon.
The recovery arc kept rolling from there. Later videos showed Mintz rising out of the chair entirely and walking toward a bar area to applause, and then progressing into a walking boot and crutches for the next stage of the comeback. It's slow, it's public, and the whole building is clearly invested.
The next phase of the comeback — Mintz moving from the wheelchair to a walking boot and crutches around the office.
None of this would be the spectacle it is without the buy-in from the rest of the office. A broken ankle from a stairway spill isn't usually national news, even by Barstool standards, but Mintz's has turned into one of those slow-burn sagas the internet can't look away from — equal parts genuine sympathy and relentless ribbing. Whether he's back to full strength or still working through physical therapy, the office clearly isn't letting him forget how this all started anytime soon.