Huge relief as popular Don returns home from hospital
A football career over but Don sees the bigger picture
COOLKENNO’S Don Jackman says he can never thank his club colleagues who saved his life at training enough for what they did for him.
The former Wicklow player has no recollection of dropping to the ground at club training or of the ensuing panic as his colleagues sprang into action in a desperate bid to save the midfielder’s life, or of the race to the dressing rooms for the precious defibrillator, the checking of the former Wicklow star’s pulse, the frantic phoning of the ambulance, the seemingly endless wait for its arrival and the gnawing fear that they were witnessing the death of one of their own.
All Don knows is that he is still here, that he’s damn lucky to be so and that all GAA clubs need to have a fully functioning defibrillator within reach for the moment when they might need it to save someone else’s life.
All within Wicklow GAA will be well aware of the drama that unfolded at Coolkenno GAA Club on Friday, March 13.
The club’s footballers were training under the black night sky, there was a deep chill in the air, breaths were rushing, hearts pumping, but one was on the brink of imminent disaster, the one beating feverishly inside the chest of former Wicklow star Jackman.
Don’s significant frame hit the dewy grass close to the dressing rooms at 8.25pm. He could have been at home alone, he could have been driving, he could have been at the opposite end of the field, he could have been anywhere but within easy reach of the dressing rooms and that precious defibrillator. A game of inches!
The popular Jackman says he has been told that his colleagues thought it was an effort at a joke in the seconds after his collapse but that very quickly that notion was replaced by the realisation that this pillar of the Coolkenno club was in dire straits.
Within two minutes the defibbrillator pads were being placed on the stricken Don’s chest and the machine registered nine shocks that restarted their friend’s heart.
‘Lucky to be able to talk to you at all,’ was Don’s first few words when he’s told that it’s great to hear his voice over the phone last Saturday evening.
A quick inquiry as to his current state of health and location is revealed in that no-nonsense Coolkenno brogue.
‘Got a defibrillator put into my heart. I was in James but I was moved back to Kilkenny a few hours ago. I feel grand, I can’t say anything else. Ever since I woke up and came back right, I feel fairly good,’ he said.
It’s not just the Sudden Cardiac Arrest (SCA) or the terrifying hours that proceeded it that Don can’t recall, it’s several days either side of it as well.
‘Very little (memory). The first thing I remember after it is Ray Stapleton (Ballymanus) came into me and he was telling me to wake up and seemingly I woke up. That would have been the Saturday evening. They weren’t expecting me to wake up until the Monday or the Tuesday but I woke up on the Saturday evening and Stapleton was talking to me or saying something to me and I woke. A Billies man put the fear of God in me,’ joked Don.
‘I can’t even remember the few days before it happened. It happened on the Friday in training and I can’t remember the few days before it, what I was doing. I’ve no recollection of what went on at all. Don’t remember being at training or anything. I think when I went down the boys thought I was acting the eegit,’ he added.
Any notion of the collapse being in jest or some sort of weird prank were quickly dispelled by the natural born leaders that populate the Coolkenno Intermediate team. Every panel has leaders but Coolkenno possess an abundance of influential men who have shown in life and sport that they can take control of whatever comes their way.
Don Jackman has been filled in slowly but surely on what transpired at his beloved Coolkenno GAA Club in the days that have followed as he has recovered in hospital. The lofty midfield general says that he feels lucky that he was surrounded with people familiar with the equipment given how serious things were.
‘My sister was telling me, and (Jim) Cushe was telling me there, just that Cathal Rossiter and Stevie Cushe and them went in and got the defibrillator. Cushe and them would have an idea of it with being in the gardai and another young chap just after joining us this year, Sean Smyth, he’s in the gardai as well and he done the course a few weeks ago so luckily enough it was fresh in their heads. It took nine goes of it to get me back. I was a gonner.
‘I don’t know what way it makes me feel. Lucky, that’s how it makes me feel.
‘They stopped twice on the way up in the ambulance as well. Stopped outside the Credit Union in Tullow and they stopped outside Naas on the way up; I only found that out this evening when I was talking to my sister on the phone.
‘I’m up on my feet since I woke up. A little bit sore after the operation, got the operation on Wednesday (March 18), a little bit sore, not walking around but when you’re lying in bed and you go to get yourself up for that second, you’re a bit sore around the chest.
‘A blockage, I honestly don’t really know. A blockage in the heart and it hit me with a bang and knocked me down,’ he said.
Don says that the importance of a club or venue having a fully functioning defibrillator is ‘unreal’.
‘The importance of a defibrillator is unreal. There are so many clubs that have them and the batteries might not be working right or they might not have been kept up to date and then you go to use it and the thing won’t work. It’s so important to keep them serviced and keep your eye on them. It saved my life.
‘I never thought it would happen to me.
‘I’m not saying I’m any great angel, I drink pints and I smoke but I’d be fairly fit from playing football and I’d always be working and things like that. I thought I’d be alright,’ he said.
The news that all GAA people in Wicklow may have been dreading is now revealed by Don as he told this reporter that his time as a football player for Coolkenno is finished due to medical advice that instructs him never to play contact sport again.
In reality it’s a minor detail in the context of the bigger picture and the real celebration is the fact that Don Jackman is still with us.
Nevertheless, those of us who have enjoyed watching him strut his stuff on the football fields of Wicklow and beyond for all these years and all those who have had the pleasure and pain of coming up against him in battle with feel a certain sadness and regret that his unmistakable style and undeniable talent will not be witnessed ever again.
Don, as expected, sees the philosophical angle on the matter.
‘Gone. Football is gone. Can play no more contact sport. I’m 40 this year, it was coming to the end anyway. To be here alive is the main thing,’ he said in a tone that sent the aforementioned regret and sadness scurrying for the hills.
As impatient as he is with lamenting the end of his career, he is far more open and willing to acknowledge that he will never be able to express his gratitude to those men who saved his life on the soft grass of the Coolkenno GAA pitch.
‘I wouldn’t be able to thank them enough to be honest. And I haven’t really got to talk to them. I’ve been talking to Cushe an odd time but I haven’t been talking to Sean Smyth or Cathal Rossiter or Colin Murphy.
‘It was pure luck. On the pitch and with the defibrillator in the club that worked. If it hadn’t been there, I’d be dead. It was 25 minutes before the ambulance arrived.
‘Three of four lads out of each club should have some inkling of what they’re doing with it.
‘The man that supplies them (defibrillators) is in Blessington (David Greville, Heart Safety Solutions) and he’s after repairing our one, servicing the one that they used on me and he’s sponsoring one to me to give to someone else so I’m thinking about putting one up around the Crab Lane, somewhere like that where there isn’t one. You know, where some elderly man comes out of the Crab and... I know the football field is only down the road but by the time you get down to it and open up the place. At least it could be useful to the area and there are a few houses around there as well,’ he added.
And not to tire the big man out with annoying questions about his brush with death, we had to ask him about the reaction from right across Co. Wicklow and beyond and the flood of get well wishes that followed.
‘It was unreal, in fairness, it was all over Facebook, it was in last week’s Wicklow People as well. I want to thank everyone for what they said on Facebook. It came from every club. Damien Power (Rathnew rang me, and it came from Bray to Coolkenno to Carnew, the whole county, so I just want to say thanks to everyone. It means a lot,’ he said.
Both Don and Coolkenno GAA Club are also extremely thankful for the efforts of local first responders Annie Friel Enright and Simon Enright, and Tommy Byrne for all their help on the night.
Gone. Football is gone. It was coming to an end anyway. To be here alive is the main thing