Brighton’s Shane Duffy nearly died when his liver was SLICED OPEN in training ground accident… but now the Irishman is high on life in the Premier League
Defender was in a coma for two days after picking up horrific injury during first-ever Republic of Ireland call-up
WHEN you first mention it to him, Shane Duffy tries to make it sound like it was some sort of groin strain or minor flesh wound.
The Brighton defender said: “That’s football. Just part of the game, you hear a lot of similar stories.”
Maybe that’s the best way to deal with it, mentally, when you have survived what Duffy has.
After all, it’s not as if a 6ft 4in, 14st Premier League centre-half will be able to shirk aerial challenges at set-pieces.
But when an 18-year-old Duffy collided with a goalkeeper in what looked like a routine training-ground clash after his first call-up to the Republic of Ireland squad, it was most definitely not a case of, ‘That’s football’.
Duffy was rushed to Dublin’s Mater Hospital for life-saving surgery and spent two days in a coma.
His liver had been sliced open, he lost SIX PINTS of blood. And during the operation, Duffy’s parents were informed he might not make it.
Later, the doctors told him it was the sort of injury they had only ever seen in victims of serious car crashes.
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Duffy recalled: “Giovanni Trapattoni had called me up.
“We were training on the Tuesday and I was probably looking at making my Ireland debut against Paraguay on the Sunday.
“At the age of 18, I’d played a couple of first-team games for Everton and I had it all. Then suddenly I’d lost it all.
“But you do hear of a lot of stories like it in football. Mentally, I was able to bounce back.
“Some can do that and some can’t. I’m lucky to still be playing and think, ‘I have to take advantage of it’.
“When you get to the big stages, like playing at the Euros last summer and now the Premier League, that’s when you have a look back and think, ‘I might not have been here’. You just have to be thankful and grateful.”
Duffy’s memories of the ordeal in May 2010 are, thankfully, limited.
He explained: “I collided with the keeper from a free-kick, I hadn’t seen him coming. There was just a big bang — and my liver was sliced open. I lost a lot of blood.
“I was unconscious, taken to hospital and was in a coma for a couple of days before I woke up and that was it. I was still alive.
“The doctors did a great job. They told me it was a car-crash injury suffered on a football pitch.”
Duffy — now 25 and an ever-present starter in Brighton’s first five Premier League matches — was back in training within weeks of the gruesome incident.
He was playing again for Everton’s development sides later that year.
But Duffy said: “I came back too early and I wasn’t right, physically.
“I’d lost a lot of blood, a lot of weight — I went from 90kg (14st 2lb) to 72kg (11st 5lb). I was just too skinny.
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“It took me a year and a half, maybe even two years to get back to where I was. But as a centre-half, if I don’t get stuck in, I don’t play. Then I don’t have a career. So I just get on with it.
“If it didn’t kill me that time, it won’t kill me next time."
Loan spells at Scunthorpe and Yeovil eventually earned him an Ireland debut against Costa Rica in 2014.
Duffy said: “Without playing at Yeovil and Scunthorpe, I wouldn’t be in the Premier League now.
“Playing Under-23 football, you get a lot handed to you. But when you go out on loan to a club where finances are tight and every point matters, it makes you grow up and become a man. You have to toughen up.”
Last summer, Duffy went to Euro 2016 as Ireland’s fourth-choice centre-half but started the win over Italy before being sent off in a narrow defeat by France in the last 16.
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Soon after, he left Blackburn for Brighton — and was a mainstay of Chris Hughton’s promotion-winning team.
His debut campaign for the Seagulls could have been perfect, had Newcastle not pipped them to the Championship title in the final minute of last season.
That is something for which they can make amends when the two sides meet at the Amex Stadium tomorrow.
But Duffy is just relishing his chance to face some of the world’s top strikers, like Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero.
He said: “You want to see if they’re really that good.
“However, players like Aguero will get the best of most defenders, so if they score, you can’t get too down.”
If that makes Duffy sound like a man with a keen sense of perspective, then there should be little wonder.