Australian rugby star James O'Connor has revealed team-mates feared for his life when he suffered a seizure on the team bus following a victory in France.
The Wallabies playmaker has had a chequered career, that has seen him dropped from the squad following an incident at Perth airport in 2013 and jailed in 2017. Happily, now 31, O'Connor managed to turn things around and was back in the Wallabies' side for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
But in a revealing interview with RugbyPass, O'Connor has discussed how bad things got for him, particularly during his time at Toulon between 2014 and 2017.
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"I was in a dark place, I was taking everything from prescription meds to drugs to alcohol, and trying to get on something every day when I was in France," he told the Offload Podcast. "I was just weak because my body was just broken. I wasn't training, I wasn't eating right, wasn't sleeping right, mentally I wasn't in a good place at all. I don't know how I was playing professional footy.
"I was doing everything. I was just playing around, burning the candle at both ends. I was still playing rugby but I was out often and a lot, wasn't sleeping much because we were on road trips and flying here, flying to this country, going down here and I had a little head knock after we played a game and on the team bus we just had a... it was a good win away so we just got into it and I ended up having a seizure on the bus and it was hectic.
"I can't remember so it wasn't that hectic for me but it was pretty hectic after. I think people were traumatised, I remember Delon Armitage saying 'I thought you died' it was f***ed. So yeah, it was pretty hectic and that was the first wake up call when I was like 'Okay I need to rein it in a bit' it was just a bit at that stage and then it happened one more time and I was like 'OK, f***, alright'.
"It happened again, yeah. It wasn't a head knock this time, they did the full examinations and everything, tested me for epilepsy, but literally I was just burnt out.
"The first one I think was a mixture of everything - drinking a lot, taking a lot and the head knock and the second time I was just so fatigued, burning the candle at both ends and it just happened."
O'Connor hit rock bottom in 2017, when he was arrested with All Black great Ali Williams and spent time in a Parisian jail cell when the Kiwi was accused of buying cocaine. Williams was later fined by local law enforcement and the LNR, while O'Connor was made to do a behavioural awareness course.
"It was rough, it was f***ing terrifying because no one spoke English in there and my French was decent. First night, someone s**t on their hands and rubbed it all over the wall, yeah ruthless. That was another rock-bottom experience."
O'Connor turned things around with the assistance of men's help organisation Saviour World. He later signed a two-year deal with the Queensland Reds.
