Alive and kicking: Lynagh on how he cheated death
‘I got 3 weeks for sarcastic tweets. So had I just rucked Farrell’s head I would have got only a week?’ Samoa centre Eliota Fuimaono-sapolu slams Adam Thomson’s one-week ban last week. Wallabies great Michael Lynagh recounts to Mark Souster his neardeath
WHENthe cameras rolled and the lights went up on television coverage of the second of England’s autumn internationals, against Australia overnight, Michael Lynagh was in his usual seat at the UK’s SkyTVto offer his welcome perspective on events at Twickenham and, in particular, his take on the Wallabies, for who he played with such distinction, and won the 1991 World Cup.
Hewill have looked his usual immaculate self and offered his customary perceptive analysis of the game. It was very difficult to discern that only six months ago, Lynagh came within a millimetre of dying.
Hewas on a brief holiday in Brisbane in April when he suffered a stroke that, in most cases, would have proved fatal and has left him with permanent damage to his peripheral vision. That it did not in Lynagh’s case is down to the quality of his medical care, his comparative youth, and his fitness from his years as one of the leading first fiveeighths in rugby history. Heknows that he is one of the lucky ones.
Six months on and Lynagh still looks a decade younger than 49. There is no physical evidence of the trauma that for 72 hours left him fighting for his life. As he begins to recount his story, emotions are stirred, particularly when recalling how he thought he might never see his wife and three sons again.
Hehad arrived from a flight from Singapore, had planned to see his parents, play a round of golf and catch up with old schoolfriends.
‘‘It was about 9pm, wehad a steak, three light beers andwewere all about to go home,’’ Lynagh says.
‘‘I took a sip and somebody told a funny story and it went down the wrong way. I started to laugh, then choke. Aswehave all done. It was quite violent.
‘‘When I stopped, I couldn’t see. I thought it was because I was jetlagged, just lost a bit of oxygen and was dizzy. I was shakingmyhead trying to getmyfocus back. I could see colours but couldn’t focus.
‘‘Then this headache just hit me. One of the guys said, ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘I don’t think so’. ‘Do you want meto call an ambulance?’ ‘Yes, I think you’d better’.
‘‘They laymedown, I didn’t know what it was. Thoughts of a stroke didn’t come into it. Myback right artery had split and clotted and stopped the blood flowing intomy brain.
‘‘Normally in a stroke you see your face drop, the tongue might loll to one side, the feeling goes in your fingers and legs, you can’t move, your speech goes. I understood everything that was going on, I was talking, I was able to givemyphone to a guy and ask him to phonemy parents. I remembered the security code.’’
It was only on arrival at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital that the seriousness of his condition became evident. ‘‘The big problem was that the swelling puts a lot of pressure particularly around your spinal column. Mine was a fraction of a millimetre from touching the spinal cord. If it does, it’s game over.
‘‘Normally they operate immediately, take the whole back of your head off and release the pressure so it doesn’t touch the cord.
‘‘The surgeon, Dr Rob Henderson, was sitting at the end of the bed. Hesaid, ‘I can’t operate on you because you are functioning too well. I could never forgive myself, because it is such a dangerous thing, if something happened’.
‘‘So they putmeon half-an-hour watch, which meant they wokeme every 30 minutes to see if my symptoms had changed, whether the swelling had got bigger. Then, after a while, it went to an hour, then two and four.’’
Hewas moved from intensive care after a week and spent a further fortnight recuperating.
‘‘I count myself very lucky,’’ he says. ‘‘It was pretty close there for a couple of days. I wasn’t very well. There were some pretty dark times when you think, ‘I hopemykids [he has three sons, Louis, 11, Thomas, 9, and Nicolo, 5] will be all right, I hope Isabella [his wife] will be all right’. It wasn’t good. It was pretty tough emotionally.
‘‘The clot was about the size of myfist. Myparents only live 10 minutes from the hospital. My father, who is a psychologist, knows how to interpret pictures of the brain. Hewas sitting there in intensive care and in the