Former Ballyclare High School pupil tells of how rugby injury experience is helping shine a light on player welfare 20 years on
A former Ballyclare High School pupil who was seriously injured in a schools rugby match 20 years ago has told of how his experience continues to help shine a light on player welfare.
Andrew Kelly (35) was initially told he may never walk again after he broke three vertebrae during the game against Rainey Endowed School on January 29, 2005.
Recalling the incident, Andrew said: “It happened during a scrum collapse quite early in the game and the referee thought it might just be a dislocated shoulder. Luckily, one of the other player’s dads was surgeon in the Royal; he checked me over, said I wasn’t to be moved and that I needed urgent medical attention.”
Andrew was taken to hospital, where he received surgery to treat the high level spinal injury. “The next thing I remember is waking up in intensive care, with all these machines around me, and my parents and my church minister standing there. That’s when I knew it was serious.”
It was only after being transferred to Musgrave Park Hospital around Easter that Andrew learned the full extent of his prognosis. “The specialist spinal doctor and nurse visited me and said that the signs pointed to a permanent paralysis,” he said. “I’d only just turned 15 a few weeks before, and to have this realisation that I might be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life was hard.”
Despite the initial bleak outlook, Andrew was determined to try and regain as much mobility and strength as he could. Following a physiotherapy appointment some three months after his injury, he began to regain feeling in his legs and toes.
Finally discharged from Musgrave after six months, Andrew continued his physiotherapy during the summer holidays before returning to school. “[Ballyclare High] were extremely supportive; they allowed me to have a reduced timetable and time to rest, and it was that flexibility that allowed me to continue on to A-Levels and then go to uni,” he said.
Two decades on, Andrew is married and runs his own award-winning digital content creation business. He is also board member of the IRFU Charitable Trust.
The organisation, which he first learned of through a friend of his family back in 2005, supports seriously injured rugby players across the island of Ireland, including 16 in Ulster.
"The Trust have always been very supportive; they help injured players in a lot of ways, from adapting cars to making a house wheelchair accessible,” Andrew said.
Awareness-raising is also a key priority for the charity. “Over the past five to ten years we’ve had conversations with World Rugby about how we can improve the safety of the game,” he added. “Rugby is a contact sport, and injuries will happen, but we’ve come a long way in trying to put player safety in the spotlight.”
This week also marks the anniversary of Carrickfergus teenager, Benjamin Robinson.
The 14-year-old collapsed towards the end of a schools rugby match on January 29, 2011, having been allowed to play on despite suffering a concussion.
The coroner at a 2013 inquest hearing found that the Carrick Grammar pupil had died from “second impact syndrome”.
His family have since been active in raising awareness of the dangers associated with concussion as part of the ‘Recognise and Remove’ campaign.