Former Rangers star Dave McKinnon has revealed for the first time how cheated death earlier this year after rupturing an artery in his brain during a horror fall.
And how he’s now helping raise funds for a stricken ex-team mate who suffered the same freak accident just weeks earlier - and ended up in a coma with permanent brain damage. McKinnon had to be rushed to hospital for lifesaving surgery after falling down a flight of stairs in Edinburgh and smashing his skull on a concrete beam.
And the horrific incident came less than two months after McKinnon’s one time Dundee team mate John MacPhail was left fighting for his life after falling down a staircase in his house. McKinnon and MacPhail were part of a Dens Park side managed by Lisbon Lion Tommy Gemmell in the late 1970s which included Jimmy Johnstone and Gordon Strachan.
Now the 66-year-old former Morton and Dundee chief executive is helping to organise a fund-raising dinner to help pay for MacPhail to be released from a hospice and return to his family home in time for Christmas. McKinnon told Record Sport : “It really has been a horrible coincidence. I didn’t appreciate how lucky I was until I spoke to the doctors at the hospital who told me exactly what happened. At one point they had 15 people trying to save my life.
“And then obviously I got word that the same thing had happened to John. My accident was in February 2022. His was in December 2021.
“I fell and hit the front of my head. John fell backwards and hit the back of his. I don’t think I would have survived if that had been me. It’s horribly ironic and it makes me think about the tragic passing of Neale Cooper, who fell to his death down a flight of stairs.
“When you’ve had a brush with your own mortality it makes you realise what’s important in life. And that’s why it’s so important we do what we can to give John and his family all the help that we can.”
McKinnon then told how close he came to death - having been left with just a pint of blood before the surgery which saved his life. He said: “I had been at a business meeting in Edinburgh and as I left it was snowing outside. I can’t remember a thing about it.!
"All I know is I slipped on and fell down 12 steps into a concrete lintel which went right into my brain and ruptured an artery. What I do know is that the ambulance service was unbelievable.
"Two ambulances arrived within five minutes and managed to subdue the bleeding. They got me to the Edinburgh Infirmary within minutes. That was lucky because I nearly bled out.
“And I was also lucky that there was a vascular surgeon at the hospital on that day who was able to operate on me when I only had one pint of blood left in my body. It’s all down to my good luck. I’ve been left with a scar on my brain and I’ve had to go through counselling because of it all but I know how lucky I am to be alive.
“It was close. The surgeon called it a near death experience. But others have not been as lucky as me.”
MacPhail has been told he is unlikely to walk again after suffering brain damage from his fall. The father of three and grandad of seven remains under constant medical supervision as his family attempt to raise enough money to make modifications to their own home.
They hope to get the construction work completed in time for MacPhail to spend Christmas at home. And McKinnon has joined together a string of big names to help out - including former Scotland boss Gordon Strachan, ex-Dundee chairman Peter Marr and the club’s legendary keeper Rab Douglas.
McKinnon said: “We’re trying to raise funds for John and his family. He’s still in a hospice in Newcastle but the family want to get him home for Christmas.
“In order to do that, they need to modify the house to make it suitable for him to live in. John and I go back to our days together as very good friends at Dundee.
“I transferred to Dundee from Arsenal. John and Gordon Strachan made me feel welcome from the start. The three of us played golf together and John played off scratch. He was just one of these guys who was talented at everything.
“In fact, when I was introduced to him at first they called him Big Lazlo after a Hungarian table tennis champion of that time. There was a table in one of the lounges at Dens Park and I thought I was a bit of a player. But John came out and wiped the floor with me and everyone else. He grannied everybody.
“That summed him up. He was brilliant at golf, brilliant at table tennis, a great football player and a wonderful big, handsome guy. So what he and his family are going through now is just absolutely heartbreaking.
“And that’s why we are doing what we can to help. Gordon Strachan is helping out as are Peter Marr and big Rab. We just want to do what we can to help organise something for such a lovely, genuine man.”
*The John MacPhail Fundraising Night will take place in Dundee’s Logie Club on November 25. Here is a link to the JustGiving page...
