Former Bears and Manly player Mick Healey reveals the pain caused by nicotine poisoning

When Mick Healey jammed his smoking hand in a truck door, the former North Sydney and Manly player couldn’t predict the pain he was about to endure - but it hasn’t changed his incredible outlook on life, writes DEAN RITCHIE.

Former Bears player Mick Healey.

He is the former rugby league star who smoked a packet of Marlboro cigarettes every day.

A craving which dramatically changed Mick Healey’s life forever.

Ten years after he retired, Healey contracted a horrific disease and spent the next two decades undergoing more than 30 operations that ultimately led to him having both legs and four fingers amputated.

Now 71, Healey, played 56 first-grade games for North Sydney and two for Manly, scoring 19 tries in a seven-year career between 1973 and 79.

Coached by some of the game’s finest – Noel Kelly, Tommy Bishop, Bill Hamilton and Frank Stanton — Healey even played in front of Queen Elizabeth II in the 1977 Wills Cup final against Easts at the SCG.

The adulation of footy soon vanished post-career, however, when Healey contracted Buerger’s Disease, which affects blood vessels in the body, most commonly the arms and legs, where it can lead to gangrene. It is often referred to as nicotine poisoning.

Former North Sydney Bears rugby league player Mick Healey at home in Forster. Picture: Terry Green

“This all started back in 1990 and kept going for around 20 years,” Healey said of his health issues, which began when he jammed his right index finger in a car door while working for transport company TNT.

“The cut became infected as it was a finger he used to hold his cigarettes.

“(The nicotine) went from the cigarette into the cut and then attacked the most vulnerable spot in your body, which were my toes because I broke them playing football.”

It was a horrendous time for Healey as doctors began surgically removing infected parts of his body.

“I lost toe after toe, then the front of my foot, ankle and different parts up my leg,” he said. “I had one below-knee amputation but the other was all right.

“But then I kicked an ashtray which was on the floor and that started, virtually, the same thing on my left foot and toes.”

Fed up with ongoing operations, Healey had both legs amputated.

“I had prosthetic legs below the knees to try and walk but they would get loose and rub on the bone and I’d get a blood blister on the stump and within a week it would turn into gangrene so they would lop off more in hospital,” he said.

Healey crashes through the Parramatta defence in 1977.

“I would spend three months in hospital each time. In the end, I just said ‘no more’ and that I would sit in a wheelchair. Both legs were amputated above my knees.

“I would have about 30 operations, maybe a few more.

“I would knock the tip of my finger and it would get a blood blister and a week later it would turn gangrenous. I’ve had two fingers on my right hand removed and two on my left.

“They even tried leeches and maggots to get rid of the dead skin, they tried everything.”

Remarkably, despite his setbacks, Healey won’t allow himself to be angry.

“There’s people out there worse off than I am,” he said.

Now living in Forster, a courageous Healey refuses to be hampered by his misfortune and moves about via a motorised wheelchair supplied by Family of League.

“There’s no use regretting when you look back – there’s no future in that,” Healey said.

“You learn to live with it. I’ve had setbacks, everyone has, and you’ve just got to get over it. If you sit there and pity yourself, you go nowhere.

“All those people that sulk do is make life miserable for themselves and the people around them. I live in my own unit. I will leave here in a pine box – I won’t go to a nursing home.

“I smoked a packet a day, sometimes more, mainly Marlboro. When it was footy season it was a little bit more than that because everyone would bite me for some. I don’t regret smoking. I enjoyed it. Nearly everyone smoked back then.

“Everyone told me to give up smoking but I related smoking to being pain free. It was doing more damage to my system than I realised.”

Healey, known for his handlebar moustache, was one of the first players to reverse a positional trend by moving from the front row to the wing.

“When I first went to Norths I was a second-rower, lock and (Noel) Kelly ran out of front rowers so he threw me there and told me what to do and what not to do. I just stayed there,” Healey said.

“Then, under Billy Hamilton in 1977, we had no wingers so I moved out wide. I was about the second fastest bloke at the club.

“My career was great; the people you meet and friendships you make. And the players you played against and how good they were. Everyone talks about how good Wally Lewis was but ‘Bozo’ (Bob Fulton) left him for dead.

“The only thing I would have changed is that I’d have gone looking for more money. At Norths I was treated as a local junior and got nothing. They just spent all their money on imports.”

Healey finished his footy career with two years at the Forestville Ferrets, lured to the well-known Sydney A-grade club by legendary Bears and Ferrets official Bill Teasdell.

Originally published as Former Bears and Manly player Mick Healey reveals the pain caused by nicotine poisoning