The weather is good for January and the pitch has always been one of the best in Ireland so you know it is going to be a good game. Lansdowne have Devin Toner, Dominic Ryan and Stephen Keogh, and we have John Cooney, and Rhys and Ciaran Ruddock, all of whom are in the Leinster and Irish underage and senior set-ups. Big players for a Division 2 game.
I’m playing at “12″ today, inside-centre. I prefer “10″ but Niall Earls is having a good season at outhalf and I have been chopping and changing between the Leinster XV, the Leinster “A” team and UCD.
I’m happy to be playing rugby. Matchdays have long since been my favourite days.
With an hour and a half until kick-off I am nice and calm. The warm-ups go smoothly, with no injuries, so we are all good to go. UCD have a big following, so there are a few hundred in the Belfield Bowl. Not thousands, but not just a man and a dog either.
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The game kicks off and it starts like a top-of-the-table clash should do — fiery.
Inside the first five minutes we are attacking on Lansdowne’s 10-metre line. John Cooney passes to Niall Earls and I take a crash ball off him. Next thing I’m on the ground at the bottom of a ruck and wrestling for possession. I go for one big rip as I am lying on my back. For the split second that I am in this position, something catches my face.
It is an almighty impact.
I do remember hearing my name being called out before the impact, and then my left eye going completely black, followed by a constant ringing in my ear. It felt like a boot striking straight down on to my face.
My eyeball has just burst.
I stand up and look for a fight. I’m raging. The first thing I see is the 6′11″ frame of Dev Toner. A little scuffle breaks out but nothing major. I am seriously pissed off though as I thought it was some Lansdowne p***k trying to take me out.
I look to the sidelines, where the UCD doctor Tony McDowell is coming toward me.
He looks at me and says: “Ian, come to the side.”
I know straight away it is pretty serious. I am told to lie on the ground and my face is covered. Dr McDowell calls for an ambulance as he has some expertise in eyes and appreciates the severity of the injury.
Philip has walked around the back part of the pitch towards the UCD dugout. When he says he’s my brother they rush him to my side. Philip would tell me subsequently that he’d never seen me so filled with rage.
But Philip acts very calmly, as if nothing serious has happened. My Dad, who came to the game in his own car, soon makes his way over too. They are asked who would like to come with me to the hospital and Philip volunteers, leaving his car in UCD.
Dad will follow us but not until he has spoken to some of the senior people in the club to find out what exactly happened.
The ambulance arrives and I am taken to St Vincent’s hospital to check if I have broken my cheekbone. Philip is with me in the ambulance and at this stage has texted Mum to say I have been taken off injured. Initially she isn’t too worried as I have picked up a few injuries in my career. Torn ligaments. Shoulder and hip injuries. Broken wrists from playing Gaelic football.
Philip isn’t an alarmist but when he then rings Mum, she knows that it is a bit more serious. It’s not like Philip to ring. She leaves her lunch and comes straight to Vincent’s. The UCD doctor comes to the hospital too.
When the ambulance arrives at St Vincent’s I am taken straight through to the Accident & Emergency Department with Philip. I begin to realise how serious this might be. I’m still wearing all my UCD kit and boots, with a long, full UCD jacket to keep me warm.
Philip has his arm around me on my right-hand side as we walk through, passing the waiting area to my left. The clank, clank, clank of my studs on the hard hospital floor would have drawn attention but other patients stop what they are doing and look at me. Others walk by but turn their heads to keep looking at me as well.
I am immediately examined by a doctor. Things are a bit hazy at this point. I have a scan, very quickly, which reveals no fracture in my cheekbone. I don’t know this at the time, but after looking at me, a doctor advises Philip to get me to the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital on Adelaide Road.
I find out later that he said to Philip: “He’s lost his eye. It’s gone.”
Philip tries to stay calm, for my benefit. Mum calls to say she is near Vincent’s and Philip asks her to meet us outside the A & entrance.
Mum pulls up at the entrance to the A & . She sees her son still wearing all his rugby kit, a patch over his eye and Philip beside me.
I sit in the front seat of the car and say: “I’ll have a look now”. Philip pleads with me not to look at it. “It won’t serve any purpose,” he says. Mum is concentrating on driving. I lift my patch down and all I can see is my eye is out of the socket and it’s not really looking like an eye. I can’t distinguish my eye colour or my pupil. It is all grey and white. It looks horrendous, like someone has wrapped layer upon layer of cling film over my eye. Mum later recalled my first reaction: “Ah sure, that will be like a black eye in the morning.” I am blase about it, probably not comprehending the gravity of the situation.
We arrive at the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital where the UCD doctor was in the car park and speaks briefly with mum. I go straight to the Accident and Emergency unit. A trainee doctor is on call and I really feel sorry for her. She takes one look and says: “I’ll be back to you in a second.”
In a very calm way she has gone to find someone with more experience. I am left on my own in a dark room for an hour at most, maybe 45 minutes, but it feels like an eternity. My mother would feel guilty about this subsequently but she wasn’t to know I’d be left on my own for so long. No one comes out to tell her to stay with her son. I feel very frightened for the first time, and vulnerable and lonely. I actually begin to cry.
A new doctor by the name of Dr Eugene Ng comes into the room with Mum. He looks far younger than his experience and professionalism quickly suggests.
From the second he starts talking I know that I am in good hands. He explains that something very serious has happened and that time is of the essence. No specific details are given to me but he stresses that we need to act on this very quickly. I am immediately whisked upstairs to the operating room where I am prepped for surgery, which lasts about four hours.
While I am in surgery, Dad drops Philip back to his car at around 9pm to a now deserted UCD. On their way back to UCD however, Dad receives a call from John McClean, UCD’s then Director of Rugby. Dad pulls over to the Spar car park in Milltown where John tells him that what happened to me was an accident.
I’ve never seen the incident since and the only person who has ever seen the video is John McClean and we took him at his word.
Philip also informs Dad that I am probably going to lose my left eye. He’d later tell me that he’d never seen him so angry.
Mum, in the meantime, has briefly spoken with Dr McDowell before being brought to a recovery ward where I will be moved after the operation and where other patients are all lying in different recovery positions.
Halfway through the operation another surgeon is called in, Mr Billy Power. He is one of the top ophthalmologists in Europe and he tells my mum: “I have never seen anything like this.”
Knowing me as well as I know myself, Mum immediately asks: “Will my son be able to play rugby again?”
His response was blunt: “No”.
“Will he even be able to drive?” she asks, as I am about to take my test.
“Yes. People can drive with one eye.”
But the picture being painted to her is fairly bleak.
***
My abiding memory is seeing Mr Power’s name written above the headboard. I initially think this must be my nickname, because this is such a powerful injury.
Mr Power comes in and, using all his experience, explains in a very clear manner what has happened. I have sustained a serious injury.
“Your eyeball has perforated and we had to clear away a lot of matter that was unnecessary and unused,” he says. “You have an eight millimetre gash at the top of your eyeball, which is where all the excess liquid came out. We had to stitch it up.”
He says it is a very strange injury. He doesn’t paint a really grim picture, or not to the same extent, as I learn later, as he does for Mum.
I don’t ask about details. Maybe I don’t want to know.
“When can I get back to playing rugby?” is my first reaction.
“This is a really serious injury,” Mr Power says. “Let’s just take it day by day.”
I have always seen my rugby career as a fight to reach the summit of Mount Everest, clawing and punching and digging my way to the top.
Now I’ve been hit by an avalanche that I don’t want to admit has happened. Now it’s a case of how quickly I can get out from under this avalanche. In training you’re always taught to get up off the ground as quickly as possible. Don’t show weakness. It’s like army training and this is my mentality. I’m grand. I’m going to get back. As quickly as possible.
Second Sight by Ian McKinley with Gerry Thornley is published on Thursday, October 13th by Reach Sport and available in all bookshops.
