What a Difference a Day Makes: How a childhood injury stayed with me for a lifetime

Award-winning chef and author Brian McDermott tells Helen O’Callaghan how a traumatic injury sustained when he was 10 was a force for addressing a health issue much later in life. And how he is only now acknowledging that the childhood injury was a massive deal for him – a process of re-connection that he describes as grounding and confidence-building. 

Brian McDermott, owner of the Foyle Hotel in Co Donegal.

I was 10, it was harvest season on our potato farm in Inishowen. My father was fixing a piece of machinery that had broken down. It was sitting on a block in the yard to keep it level while he investigated it.

There was mischief in me — I was kicking away at this stone block, wanting to knock it.

A couple of times, Dad gave out but he was busy… All of a sudden, the machine, a two-ton weight, fell onto my foot.

Initially, I felt zero pain — yet it had completely, cleanly, taken off the big toe on my right foot.

Dad saw, got my uncle, and together they lifted the block. Almighty pain, an almighty rush of heat came upon me. I fainted.

The specifics of that morning I remember still, the crisp coldness, smell of autumn, of harvest leaves…

My next memory was waking up outside Letterkenny Hospital. Me in the passenger seat, sitting on Dad’s knee. I could see blood, him holding a towel down by my foot. He’d seen the shoe cut, my toe hanging off. He didn’t know what was right or wrong; he was just trying to keep it all together, get to the hospital.

All within 20 seconds… the horrific hardness of pain in my leg. I passed out again.

My next memory, being brought round by a nurse the next day. Seeing my leg in a strap, hoisted up, bandages as big as in the films right up my leg, the nurse’s kind face, asking what’s your name — checking I knew who I was.

I asked if my foot had been cut off. She said, ‘No, your big toe was cut off, we’ve stitched it back on in overnight surgery.’

My mum at the bedside, holding my hand, I feel it still, that sense of warmth — her smile.

‘You’re going to be OK, we’re all fixed.’ The first safe words I felt in that period of time. I felt safer with her words than with medical ones.

I didn’t realise until later how she knew to bring confidence to her big family of 12 children.

Once they were able to secure the toe back, the severity of it all reduced a bit.

I was in the hospital for six weeks, allowing everything to heal, a lot of lying around waiting.

And then getting me up on my feet, getting me weight-bearing… I remember a conversation between doctors about balance, me standing up for the first time in weeks, holding onto the bed, feeling I was going to fall forward… Getting a bit of stability about myself…

Not trying to be macho but this is the first time I’ve spoken about it publicly. Emotions well up, thinking back to that morning.

Thankfully, the bones healed, knitted, and came together. Once I could hold the weight, I walked fairly quickly.

Aside from a bit of rehab in the hospital, there just wasn’t physio then — you were left to get up, get home, get on with it. I mean that most respectfully.

A packed house, sharing a bed, I feared my foot getting hit again.

I forgot about it periodically over the years and never talked about it. But its impact re-presented in my mid-30s — in a very cold feeling, that big toe losing temperature, sensation.

I was found to have cardiac artery disease at what was considered a young age.

My toe played a really big role in prompting me to investigate what was going on, in making me realise I had this cardiac issue I was then able to deal with, manage.

Only a year ago, I was with the physio about some degenerative stuff in my hip. Three times he asked: ‘Anything ever happen to your right foot?’ First, I said, ‘No, just an anterior cruciate ligament injury in my right leg.’

The third time he asked, I realised: ‘Oh I’m so embarrassed. I got my big toe cut off.’

His head went into his hands. He said, ‘How could you forget something so impactful?’

He told me that the toe has trauma, that a very basic thing for me to be able to do was rub the scar — you can still see the marks of the 21 stitches.

Only in the last 12 months have I had a daily routine of reconnection with my toe — working on the tissue, the scar, doing a bit of stretching. I’ll be 50 next year — it’s only now I’ve re-engaged with it.

Mentally, I’d completely blocked it out. Maybe there was unresolved trauma. There definitely was detachment.

Back when it happened, afterwards, there weren’t many conversations or anywhere to freely ask questions. That’s no one’s fault — that was rural Ireland. That moment in physio, acknowledging that it was a massive deal for me as a child, released something in me. It’s why I’ve been able to give that foot some care, let somebody — in a foot clinic — see it for the first time. I’d been hiding it, hiding its story.

It feels part of me again, as important as my hand or thumb. And the warmth that has come back into it, it feels alive.

There’s confidence — in my posture, in being more upright. I’m standing on both legs now rather than leaning to the left, having a shy lameness to that foot.

Reconnecting has grounded me.

• The PTSB Ideal Home Show takes place this weekend at the RDS Simmonscourt. Ireland’s best home improvement professionals and suppliers will showcase the latest innovations in home build and renovations.
• Award-winning chef Brian McDermott will share easy and delicious recipes at the Dunnes Stores Chef’s Live Theatre on Saturday and Sunday.
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