Saint John’s CRY for help
Last September, 27-year-old John Doyle from Inchicore was looking forward to lining out as usual for his St Patrick’s Athletic side in a Leinster Senior League away game to Kilnamanagh at Tymon North Park in Tallaght.
“It was a normal Sunday morning,” he remembers. “You get up, have a cup of tea and a bit of food, then off to the game. The warm-up was normal, the start of the game was normal, then, 15 minutes in, everything changed.”
John played at centre-half, and the ball was up the other end of the pitch when his world was suddenly turned upside down.
“It was a headrush, there was dizziness and blurred vision. And I knew, right away, there was something wrong. I just went down on my hunkers, with my hand up for the line and, with that, the next thing I remember is when I woke up in Tallaght Hospital that evening.”
He learned afterwards how his goalkeeper, who had some first aid know how, had rushed to his aid and put him in the recovery position on the pitch. Then he was wrapped up and kept warm until, before long, an ambulance was on the scene to take him on the short journey to Tallaght Hospital.
His understanding is that his heart hadn’t actually stopped but, as he puts it, “was only short of stopping. There was a strange pulse.”
At the hospital, a previously undetected heart condition was diagnosed and John underwent surgery to have a defibrillator inserted, which is designed to automatically shock his heart back into action should he ever encounter a similar problem again. And, with certain precautions, he has been advised that he can lead a normal life.
“Years ago, you would have been told to sit and down and do nothing almost but now they encourage you to get out and walk or maybe do a bit of jogging — though no running marathons or anything like that. Your normal day-to-day life doesn’t really change.”
Yet, there has been a heavy personal price to pay. John’s condition means that he has had to give up his job as a driver for Dublin Bus but, for this committed football man, even that significant blow was overshadowed by the one bit of news he really didn’t want to hear.
“The hardest thing I was told in hospital was that I wouldn’t be able to play football again,” he says. “That really hurt. Okay, you’re told you can’t drive a bus again but at least you can try to get a new job. But to be told you can’t play football again, that’s really hard. Have I come to terms with it? Not really, no. I still go to the games with my tracksuit on and I’m still pestering the manager to give me a game. But it’s not going to happen.”
By a strange coincidence, John has been a supporter of Bolton Wanderers since about the age of 10. He’s not quite sure how that came about, but suspects he just fancied being different to all the Man U fans about the place when he was growing up. And the seriousness of what he went through last September only really sank in, he says, when he saw the horror which befell Fabrice Muamba in the FA Cup quarter-final on St Patrick’s Day.
“I’d watched the start of the game at home,” he says, “but then I had to go to my mother’s house to collect something. While I was there, I got a text telling me what was happening and straight away I turned on Sky Sports News. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it. It was heartbreaking to watch the pictures of him lying on the pitch like that. I broke down in tears because I feared the worst for him. Now, I wish him all the best in his recovery.”
Unable to find a new job, John Doyle is devoting his time to promoting awareness of cardiac risk among young people as well as raising funds for the Centre For Cardiac Risk at Tallaght Hospital.
“I feel I owe my life to the amazing cardiac team there,” he says.
Last night’s Airtricity League games saw many clubs wearing t-shirts supporting the CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) charity, while John himself and his family were in Tolka Park collecting donations at the Shels-Pats game. Both teams in tonight’s Sligo Rovers-Dundalk fixture at The Showgrounds will also wear CRY t-shirts in their pre-match warm-up.
An engaged father of two, with another child on the way, John Doyle has learned just how fragile one’s grip on life can be.
“It’s hard to describe,” he says. “But you wake up in the morning and you realise how lucky you are. And all you can do is make the most of every minute because you never know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
For further information please see www.cry.ie.
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