‘I’m just so happy to be alive’

THEY were seven short words which summed up the seven longest days in Shane Duffy’s young life: “I’m just so happy to be alive.”

The 18-year-old Irish player, who required life-saving surgery after rupturing a liver artery in a training game collision in Malahide last Friday, was discharged from the Mater Hospital yesterday in the company of his parents Brian and Siobhain.

Looking pale but standing tall and clearly in good spirits, Duffy spoke in public for the first time about his journey to hell and back, beginning by offering heartfelt thanks to all the FAI and hospital medical staff who, as he said matter of factly, “saved my life”.