Rugby: Clohessy - I’m lucky to be alive

Ireland prop Peter Clohessy said today he is lucky to be alive after being burned in an explosion at his home on Monday evening.

Clohessy, 36, who played his final international for Ireland at the Stade de France on Saturday, will see a plastic surgeon in Galway tomorrow having received burns to his arm and face when a garden bonfire he was tending at his Limerick home caused an explosion.

‘‘I am lucky to be alive after my horrible experience,’’ the Munster front row veteran wrote in Cork's Evening Echo.

‘‘I was burning rubbish when there was a loud explosion and the flames burned my arm and the side of my face.

‘‘I rolled around the garden to extinguish the flames but by then they had burned into my skin.

‘‘I don’t know what exploded in the fire but there may have been an aerosol can in it. But there was an almighty bang and I am lucky to be alive to tell the tale.’’

Characteristically, Clohessy found time to make light of the incident, joking: ‘‘My wife Anna told me to go out with a bang before the French match but I don’t think she wanted me to go out this way.’’

Clohessy said he was unlikely to be fit to face Castres in Munster’s Heineken Cup semi-final in Beziers on April 27.

‘‘At this stage I would have to say I am extremely doubtful for the match. I am a quick healer but it all depends on what the plastic surgeon says.’’