The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Boxer Mike Towell ‘wanted a brain scan’ before fatal fight
‘Iron Mike’ complained of crippling headaches to NHS staff
The partner of tragic Dundee boxer Mike Towell claimed he asked doctors up to three times for a brain scan after he felt like his head “was going to explode” days before his final bout.
Chloe Ross, 24, told how “Iron Mike” attended hospital after complaining of crippling headaches during a sparring session on September 11.
She said he was rolling on the floor of a waiting room in pain, but was later advised he was suffering from migraines and told to see a GP.
Chloe, who was Mike’s partner for nine years, said he accepted it was migraines and put the headaches down to pre-fight stress.
But 25-year-old Mike refused to spar again before his British title eliminator with Welsh welterweight Dale Evans in Glasgow on September 29.
Mike was knocked down twice in the fight and died in hospital the following day, suffering from bleeding to the brain.
Speaking publicly about the matter for the first time, Chloe revealed: “Michael had headaches for three weeks before.
He was in sparring one day and had to be pulled out after the third round because it was so bad.
“Straight away his coaches said ‘you’re not fighting, you need to get this seen’.
He was taken straight to Dundee, to Ninewells A&E, but they said it wasn’t an emergency.
“But if you put ‘boxing’ and ‘headache’ in the same sentence surely that should be enough.
“He was lying on the floor in the waiting area with his hood up, reduced to tears, saying ‘my head is going to explode, it’s really not right, I know something is wrong’. They just said he shouldn’t be there, and he needed to see his GP.
“They said it sounded like a migraine. Michael said ‘you need to scan me, I know that it’s not right’. But they said he needed to see his GP and gave him Co-codomol, and sent him on his way.
“But he was like, ‘how is it not an emergency? I’ve just been hit in the head and I’ve never experienced a headache like this before’.
“He’d been fighting since he was 15. He’s not normally a complainer so it must have been bad for him to go to A&E about it.”
The GP took a blood test but they have not yet seen the results.
She added: “They gave him aspirin, which I’ve heard could actually make bleeding on the brain worse, but refused to scan him and sent him away.”
Chloe said Mike, with whom she has two-year-old son Rocco, continued to suffer from headaches before the fight but trusted medical opinion and accepted they were caused by stress.
He refused to spar and insisted adrenaline would get him through the fight.
Chloe said she was hurt by suggestions Mike had not told anyone about his headaches and by claims he only fought for a bumper payday when he actually stood to make only a four-figure sum.
She said: “He didn’t keep his headaches away from anyone. He would have fought for free. It was nothing to do with money.
“People were saying on the TV he would have got £10,000 for that but it was nothing close.
“Don’t get me wrong, he had the money spent in his head – a holiday to Mexico was top of the list – but he still worked as a scaffolder. He wasn’t making enough to box full-time.”
Mike was knocked down in the first round of the fight, but recovered to continue. Referee Victor Loughlin stopped the fight in the fifth round shortly after Towell was knocked down a second time.
He received treatment in the ring and was given oxygen before being taken to an ambulance on a stretcher. He was later transferred to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where it was discovered he had serious bleeding to the brain.
Chloe said: “I wasn’t allowed in the ring, but I didn’t realise how serious it was. I wasn’t allowed in the ambulance either so I took a taxi with his mum and friends.
“At the hospital I was told almost straight away he wasn’t going to make it.
“After an hour and a half they said they could tell how severe it was and we should prepare for the worst. I can’t describe how that felt. I still thought there was hope.”
An NHS Tayside spokeswoman said: “We have received a complaint and we are in direct contact with the family.”