‘I just recall a stabbing pain like someone elbowing me in the head’

The events are etched indelibly in Phil Quinlan's mind. Seared into his consciousness. The events of November 26th, 1989. A Sunday. A madcap day when the world went a bit mad and everything changed.

The memories, hard facts, are mingled with a mass of other stuff; snippets of dreams and nightmares, flashbacks and what he himself terms "made up memories."

It was a foggy day and Phil was, at the time, like many other 15-year-olds; sports crazy and mad for action. He attended St Patrick's CS and played underage rugby for Navan. He also loved running. He played soccer too and on the fateful day he had a game with his club Parkvilla away to Torro Utd; a local derby.

The Parkvilla players were transported on the short trip out to the game by the late, great Kerr Reilly.

Kerr was a soccer man through and through, noted for his dedication to following the Republic of Ireland soccer team all over the world. "Kerr had to park his bus and we had to traverse across the fields to get to the pitch," he recalls.

Another thing Quinlan recalls is the referee arriving on a Honda 50 which was still a popular mode of transport at the time. “It was like Joey the Lips arriving in the Commitments in his Honda 50," he recalls with a smile.

There was no salubrious dressingrooms like there is now at the home of Torro Utd FC. "We togged out pitch side, a very, very foggy day, I didn't think the game would be played, you couldn't see far in front of you. He'll call this off before too long, I thought."

The game started. The play flowed from one end to the other in typical helter-skelter fashion. The shouts of players and mentors cut through the thickening fog. "I didn't get too many touches, I don't think many of us did. A goal was scored. Liam Carey. He told me afterwards he beat about 17 players, and beat them again, with a mazy run before scoring! It was probably just a tap in because you couldn't see anything. I was on the left wing. I was fast and wanted to play on the wing."

Then it happened. The ball came Phil Quinlan’s way. He went to head it with an opponent and got a bang in the head. He felt a little woozy. The referee asked him the usual questions: What day was it? What was the score? Where is the game? "I answered them all perfectly but very quickly the concussion set in. Looking back now I remember a lot of different things; people shouting at me as if they were miles away, it was like they were speaking to me through a loudhailer, like an echo - and the fog was getting worse.

"The fog also started to set in here (points to his head) and that was the scary part. Gerry Browne, the manager, said I was coming off. I went into the dug out and started to fall asleep. A few of the lads were beside me and back in the day concussion was a bit of a joke at least among the lads. In the dugout I just recall a stabbing pain like someone elbowing me in the head. It was getting scary at that stage, I blacked out. Later I heard how Damian Hilliard, a fantastic player, who was injured that day that had noticed blood coming from my ear, that's when the panic set in."

Kerr Reilly was called, the team bus was made ready and Phil Quinlan was rushed to Navan hospital. He was carried into the hospital by Kerr and on his way the strickened youngster threw up what he thought was gravy. It was blood. He was assessed in Our Lady's before he was rushed, blue lights flashing, to Beaumont Hospital. A cat scan revealed a rapidly developing clot. He was immediately rushed to the operating theatre. The struggle to save the teenager's life was underway.

THE CONSEQUENCES

After the emergency surgery Phil Quinlan spent 10 days in a coma. When he emerged from that he was unconscious for a further six weeks. "A coma is when you are non-responsive, when you are unconscious there is some sort of response, they wiggle your toes to get a response. Mam was told by a neurosurgeon there's a 25 per cent chance of making it through. He was not just saying that in the hope that I would. Apparently they would have been happy with anything. They didn't know if I would be in a vegetative state or whatever.

"When I came out of the coma and the sustained sleep I couldn't walk, talk or eat. My right side was totally paralysed, I was fed through an NG (nasogatic) tube which was a divil, very painful on my throat, it goes up your nose to feed you. I had lost my swallow, my gag reflex had gone altogether, that was hard because I was just getting the nutrients I needed but I saw all those adds on TV for cornflakes with very fresh milk and I always was a lover of milk, freezing cold milk."

He was switched to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dun Laoghaire, where slow journey back to some sort of normality continued. Gradually, steadily Phil started to recover helped all the way by his loving, supportive family, particularly his mother Angela. "She was by my bedside everyday for three-and-a-half months."

The injury was to the cerebellum part of the brain. His balance was off, his right arm and leg badly affected, movement reduced. He had to learn to read and write again. Then there was the pain. Always the pain.

Phil was supposed to do his Inter Cert in the summer of 1990. Clearly he had to be put that plan on hold. "My father still slags me to this day that I got injured on purpose to avoid the Inter Cert so that I could watch the World Cup finals in Italy where Ireland were, of course, playing!"

He laughs at that, the good of it all.

THE ROCKY ROAD BACK

Gradually, steadily, Phil started to get back to some sort of normality. A huge step forward for him was going back to St Patrick's Classical School and resuming his studies. His return was a positive sign but it brought with it a whole new, fresh set of challenges.

"At St Pat's it was very hard because I was bullied hugely, teenage boys, lads laughing at me, the way I walked with an exaggerated gait or gimp, whatever way you want to put it.

"I had a few very good friends who looked after me, my bodyguards! The fact also I had to walk the length of the school every 40 minutes from one class to the next was very good for me. Those walks set me up brilliantly, it was like subconscious physio, walking, getting stronger, going through the group of lads some of whom tried to push me over for the craic.

"Some of the teachers were very good to some, some iffy, they didn't know what way to look at me because I could only talk in a whisper, my voice was gone so I had to go through intense speech therapy. Sometimes they couldn't hear me.

"Once in particular I was caught standing up to the bullies. Physically I couldn't stand up to them, vocally even I couldn't stand up to them but I made an effort and one or two teachers said get to Mr Kennedy's, the principal's office. They were trying to protect me from the bullies, that was the safest place for me rather than the classroom or the corridors although it continued on.

"When there wouldn't be anybody around I'd get a sneaky shoulder or elbow to knock me over. I fell a few times but you just get up again."

Such experiences bred in Phil a fierce resilience. He left school after his Leaving determined to live a full life and he has - and continues to do so. He has had a varied and rich career. He worked in the banking industry, moved to the computer sector. He took a significant pay cut to return to work in Navan helping disabled kids, some with profound disabilities. The smiles he gets in return for what he does is more than compensation for any financial loss.

He also travelled the world lived in the US and Australia for spells. In 2006 he met Helena Reilly from Oldcastle. She was a tenant for a time in a house Phil bought with his brother, James, in Navan. Phil and Helena, who played football for Oldcastle, discovered a shared love for sport. That was one of the factors that brought them together. They now have two children - Eileen and Joe.

Thirty years later the legacy of Phil's bang on the ear is ongoing. He still walks with a limp.

"It's like your fist always being clenched that's what this (taps his right leg) is like. Even at night if I move at all the spasticity and the tone, the heaviness grabs you. I can type like a divil with my left hand but my right is still trying to catch up."

So the struggle continues many years after that foggy day in '89 when everything changed for young Phil Quinlan.

PHIL QUINLAN ON ...

HIS LIFE GROWNG UP

"We grew up in Silverlawns (Navan). I am the oldest of four, two sisters (Nicola and Pam) and his brother, James. I loved athletics, played rugby for Navan underage tams and St Pat's, never got injured because I was very wiry, scrum-half, it was always easier to tackle the big lads near the scrum rather than when they started running at you. You could nail them near the scrum. I wanted to play soccer also for Parkvilla because my father, he played for them, won a Metropolitan Cup with 'Villa in 1973.

"We lived in Zambia for four years, my father was an engineer in the copper mines. I lived there from three-year-old to seven. We used to have a mango tree out the back and as I say to my children that mango tree was my Playstation, my Ebox, my You Tube, my imagination. I was a very active kid, a voracious reader even at that age. As a youngster I was the fittest guy in Navan. I represented Meath twice in the cross-country. I was never the fastest but I could run forever."

HOW WORKING IN AMERICA ONE SUMMER WAS SUCH A HUGE TURNING POINT

"In the summer of 1996 I worked in a camp for people with special needs in New Jersey. That was a real eye opener. Suddenly I was looking after punters who were the same way as I was just seven years previously. I was their everything where as my mam and dad were my everything, the nurses too, the rehab staff they did everything for me.

"Then in the US I was doing everything, wiping bums, brushing fully grown men's teeth. I was their minder, I was their champion, I was their guidance counsellor, I was their everything and it was such a turnaround for me. I was in charge of people rather than people in charge of me. It was a huge uplifting experience. These guys were relying on me to be their everything the way I was just a few years back. After three months working there I travelled the length and breadth of America.

ON THE WRITING OF THE BOOK

"Back in 2016 when I first put pen to paper I was in a very self pitying state I broke my hip after a fall in Bettystown beach. I was out of work for three months. I wrote down 80,000 words over those three months sent it off to publishers but got rejection after rejection.

"Went over to London in 2020 with Eileen and Joe for a one-nighter, met up with an old rugby-playing pal David Finn, his father Jack Finn was a doctor in the Bedford Medical Centre for years. He suggested I should contact a student of journalism doing a PhD they might give you a hand. I contacted Steve O'Rourke, a journalist with for the 42.ie who is now a copywriter, and he said he'd work on the book with me. The rest is history.”

* 'And a Bang on the Ear - Reclaiming My Life After a Brain Injury' by Phil Quinlan, with Steve O'Rourke, foreword by Paul Howard will be launched in Easons, Navan on Wednesday 22nd March. 6.30. Guest speaker is Paul Howard.