Tom Parsons has revealed that he could have lost his leg following his horror injury five years ago.
The former Mayo midfielder suffered extensive damage to his left knee in particular as a result of a freak incident when playing against Galway in the 2018 Connacht Championship, leaving him with a dislocated knee, three ruptured ligaments and a tear on another, as well as calf and hamstring damage.
It was feared - if not widely expected - that Parsons would never play again but he made it back to feature in the following year’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Dublin and retired after the 2020 All-Ireland final loss to the same opposition having come off the bench in that year’s semi-final win over Tipperary in what proved to be his last appearance for the county.
The Charlestown man is the subject of the next edition of Laochra Gael on TG4 on Thursday night (9.30pm) and the documentary outlines how playing again was the least of his concerns in the immediate aftermath of the injury.
He said: “I have heard stories of full dislocations and the artery being blocked. It doesn’t need to be blocked for too long before you lose function in the leg.
“Mine was blocked. When they took off the boot, the foot was black. They had just set up a new system in Mayo to get me off the pitch quickly. I was in surgery within 30 or 40 minutes.
“If it happened in Belmullet, during a training session on a Friday and there was a delay to get an ambulance there, that 40 minutes was two hours. It could have been a completely different story.”
He continued: “I don’t consider myself lucky. But I consider myself fortunate that the medical care was there.
“That is why it is really important there is an emergency plan of action in place. As reasonable as possible for all major games. These things can happen.
“Time was of the essence with my injury. They got in there to Castlebar University hospital and operated immediately.
“Even after that they rushed me to Galway University hospital because Castlebar didn’t have a vascular team. They still weren’t sure. They wanted to get a CT in Galway.
“That was a waiting game. You get a CT and at the time the leg was still black. I remember being able to move my toes alright, I was in such pain that I didn’t know until results of the CT came what was the vascular damage done.
“The doctor at the time, his face said it all. He said you are very fortunate. It is such a fine margin. I am blessed it went how it did.”
Partly because of the fact that he is based in Dublin with a young family, Parsons has not returned to club football since retiring from the inter-county scene, but he added: “If I had another injury on that knee, because I had three surgeries, you could open up a can of worms.
“What is great is that I train three or four times a week, I run 10k, I lift 120kg on the spot bar and as long as I am training and looking after my body, the knee is fine.
“But if have a few lazy weeks, like over Christmas, and I don’t train and don’t look after it, the next time I hit the road for 5k the knee will tell me about it. But I think that is going to be a legacy for a lot of injured inter-county players.”
Meanwhile, in his capacity as chief executive of the Gaelic Players’ Association, Parsons expressed concern about aspects of the new structure for this year’s All-Ireland SFC.
The fact that a Division Four team (Sligo, Leitrim or London) is guaranteed a spot in the Connacht final has significant implications with a team much higher up the food set to be denied a spot in the race for the Sam Maguire Cup as a result.
Parsons suggested a seeding system to protect Division One and Two teams in such an instance, while he accepted that the mechanism whereby 24 round robin games will be played to eliminate just four teams may need to be looked at after this season.
He said: “When you are in group stages you don’t want games that are essentially dud games or non-competitive.
“It is a fine balance whether the third team gets another crack at the whip. I think it is too important not to have a review at the end of the year of what works well and how to tweak the season and the mechanics of it.
“But, again, group stages are tried and tested in nearly every county at club level. It is a tried and tested model but I agree, it is something we need to keep an eye on.”
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