CONCUSSION AWARENESS:ONE YEAR ago Fermanagh footballer Mark McGovern sustained brain damage after being struck by Patrick Power during a club game in San Francisco.

It was an off-the-ball incident for which Power, an Irish American, received a 96-week suspension and was subsequently questioned by the San Francisco Police Department.

McGovern’s friend Emmet Scallon was also on the field that day and vividly described the traumatic aftermath during the 25-minute wait for an ambulance.

“Mark was actually out, unconscious,” said Scallon on The Late, Late Show in March. “He was just lying there and starting to go into convulsions of seizures. Frothing at the mouth with blood. It was very scary. No response from him whatsoever.”

McGovern eventually came out of a six-week coma, forced to travel home in October by land and sea, where his rehabilitation successfully continued for a “95 per cent recovery” that medical observers have called a miracle.

“That’s (what I’ve) been told by many doctors. That it’s a miracle. I’m just glad I’m here today to be honest,” he said.

The 23-year-old, who can never play Gaelic football again, was speaking at the GAA concussion awareness launch in Croke Park yesterday.

He continues to have problems. “Short-term memory, cognitive thinking, word finding. If I was trying to say a word it might take three or four words to explain that word because I can’t find it.”

He also had to learn how to talk and walk all over again.

“The match was at 7pm on a Saturday evening (June 25th, 2011). I togged out like normal.

“I was playing wing back, I was having a good game but in the second half the manager says, ‘Mark you go midfield’ and that’s where I came across the guy who hit me.

“Straight from the throw up he was hitting me from the word go. Everywhere I turned he was there, hitting me away. Then the ball was in our defence, we were defending it and we got the ball out and were working it up to the forward line. I ran forward to support and the next thing was I woke up in San Francisco General Hospital.”

McGovern had only been in America five days when he played the game out in Treasure Island.

After a few weeks family and friends told him what happened. He was shown a picture of his alleged assailant.

“I knew there was a good chance that it could have been him because he kept hitting me and was vicious to me.”

The incident has led to other consequences in Mark’s every day life.

“It hasn’t obviously been the same since. Relationships have just gone. Everything has just left me. Relationships with my family just aren’t the same as they were obviously. Friends had to try to rebuild me as a person because I have changed a bit. My girlfriend and I have just grown apart. We have broken up because of this. So many things have happened because of it.

“I don’t think that frustration will ever go away. I was told by three or four doctors that I will never play football again which is horrible. I’ve accepted that now. I’m now coaching, I’m still involved.”

The cost of his treatment and rehabilitation has been enormous, but so was the reaction of the extended GAA family.

“The support was immense from all over the country, England, America, Australia. There were fundraisers all over the world. It’s mad to think that they were fundraising for me. It was quite embarrassing, obviously brilliant. Only in this sport could it happen.”

The opportunity to go full circle, by returning to San Franciso in May, perhaps came too soon.

“I went back over there for check-ups. I had to stop in New York, I couldn’t fly direct.

“The doctor asked me to go up to the general hospital where I spent most of the time in a coma. I refused. I didn’t want to go back up there. I had too many bad memories. I’d be scared I suppose.

“I went back to the rehabilitation hospital. I met the doctors and nurses. It was a happier time there, it’s where I did my first talking and walking, that’s where I took my first steps again.

“I met them all (in the Ulster San Francisco GAA club). They were brilliant. They were having a 25th anniversary gala. I met them and they sorted me out. Joe Duffy, Séamus Canning. Séamus deserves most of the credit. He was brilliant.

“I was actually going to stay over for the summer and help with coaching and training of the team. I didn’t get a summer out of it last year. I wanted to experience it.

“I was kind of glad that I didn’t. Even three weeks was long enough. I wasn’t fit to. Too many bad memories. Sleep at night wasn’t great.

“I was always kind of wide going around the city in case I would bump into the guy who did it. Maybe time will heal it. At the minute I am happy to be home.”