He followed me to the hospital with the finger’: LOI player describes freak training injury
League of Ireland player Kevin McHugh has said his footballing career is over after he lost a finger in a freak accident.
The Finn Harps striker horrified many when he shared a graphic image of his finger as he rushed to hospital (Scroll down to the bottom of the story if you want to see it, but be warned - it is HORRIBLE).
In the five days since the accident, McHugh was operated on, but medics were unable to save his finger.
He described to Barry Whyte on BBC Radio Foyle what happened as he held a children’s soccer training session.
“We have to jump these gates to get another set of goals out if we need them, depending on the crowd that turns up,” McHugh said. “I jumped the gate last week and the week before, and unfortunately this week the ring got caught in the top of the gate.
“Once my two feet landed on the ground it felt like the ring...like there was a tug on it or something. And once I looked down at my hand, and there was no finger there, I was like, 'Christ'.”
The horrified reaction of his fellow coaches only emphasized how serious it was.
“I looked at the two boys, Des McGlynchey and BJ Banda, I looked at the two of those through the fence, and they were sheet white and they were in shock. I knew it was bad so I had to hop back over the fence and had to bring BJ around, believe it or not, because I needed him to coach the kids - I knew I had to go to the hospital.”
With his own children among the children at training, McHugh was anxious to get away as soon as possible.
“The first thought was I couldn't let me own kids see my hand like this. I didn’t want to pass out in front of my own kids, so I knew I had to get to the car and get to the hospital as quick as I could.”
Whyte asked how painful the injury was as McHugh rushed to hospital.
When I was in the car it was pretty bad, I could feel my heart kind of pumping through my chest, it was pretty bad but I still had to make a phonecall to Mel, the other coach, because I realised I hadn't got the finger with me. I knew I would need it for hospital.
“I says to him, 'Can you do me a favour'? And he goes, 'What'? Because he didn't see how bad it was at the time. And I says, 'Could you go back up and get my finger on top of the fence'? And he went, 'Are you serious'? And I says, 'I am - I'm very serious. I need you to do it. I need you to settle yourself and go and get it'. And he did - he brought it back up. He followed me to the hospital with the finger.”
The picture of McHugh’s finger and the story of what happened spread rapidly and he said updating social media helped distract him from the horror of what was happening.
“That was keeping me sane, believe it or not. When the nurses were working on me, cleaning the wound, the doctor told me, ‘Flick through pictures on your phone, keep your mind occupied’.
“That why I was updating people.”
The 37-year-old had been planning to retire at the end of the season anyway but the ijury hastened the end of his career: “It's not the way I'd planned, to kind of say goodbye, but that's the way it is, you know?”.
h/t: balls.ie
