By Sam McClure
Melbourne champion Christian Petracca remains in intensive care following surgery to repair internal injuries, with the club hopeful that he would be moved to a ward as early as Wednesday night.
The Demons have also moved to defend their handling of the superstar’s injury after his collision with Collingwood captain Darcy Moore, with several medical professionals, including the paramedic who travelled with Petracca in the ambulance, believing that the injury was limited to his ribs.
Christian Petracca in pain after a knock to the ribs.Credit: Getty Images
Petracca is recovering from surgery, after being diagnosed with four fractured ribs, a punctured lung and a lacerated spleen.
Melbourne football boss Alan Richardson, who visited him in ICU on Wednesday morning, told The Scoop that Petracca was in high spirits and surrounded by friends and family.
“He’s still in ICU, he could be in a ward as early as tonight (Wednesday). He’s hoping to get out in the next couple of days. The doctor who came in to his room was really happy and our doctor, who’s liaising with the hospital’s medical staff, is really happy.”
It remains unclear how long Petracca will be on the sidelines. Collingwood ruckman Mason Cox missed six weeks with a lacerated spleen early last season. It’s unclear how serious Petracca’s laceration is compared to Cox’s.
“He’s a bit like most footballers,” Richardson said. “He’s not feeling good about lounging around doing nothing.
“Clearly he’s going to have to lay low for a while.”
Debate has raged this week as to whether Petracca should have been allowed back on to the ground, where he gathered another six disposals before being subbed out at half-time.
The Scoop has confirmed that after Petracca returned to the field, Collingwood star Jack Crisp lined up on him at a stoppage and said: “Are you sure you’re alright?”
Crisp went on to win the Neale Daniher Medal for best afield in the King’s Birthday clash. Petracca has said it was his call to head back out after an accidental knee to the ribs from Moore.
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin said after the game that the club’s processes would be reviewed, but backed in his medical staff.
Richardson, who has been through similar instances when he was senior coach of St Kilda, said they were acting on the best medical advice.
“They are a really difficult thing to diagnose,” he said. “The paramedic who came in the ambulance ... [the] diagnosis was that it was ribs and that it was unlikely to be further damage.
“I don’t want to look like we are making excuses, but it must be incredibly difficult to detect.”
The AFL said on Tuesday that the league’s chief medical officer, Dr Michael Makdissi, had spoken to Melbourne’s doctors and was “comfortable” with the processes they adopted.
As Petracca hobbled back on to the MCG after a sickening collision with Moore, one man looking on knew all too well how the Melbourne champion was feeling.
It was nearly 30 years earlier, in the 1996 preliminary final at the SCG, when Matthew Lloyd’s first-quarter bump on Sydney’s Mark Bayes backfired horribly.
Matthew Lloyd in his early years at Essendon.Credit: Getty Images
In just his 16th senior game, Lloyd, then 18, gingerly left the field, complaining to trainers that he had been badly winded.
But, like Petracca, it would be hours later that the player, his family and the club would know the extent of the internal injuries.
Remarkably Lloyd, like Petracca, found a way to will himself back on to the ground during the second quarter. But that would only last minutes.
“I remember trying to listen to Sheeds (coach Kevin Sheedy) at half-time and felt like I was going to pass out,” Lloyd told this column.
Lloyd spoke to Essendon club doctor, the late Bruce Reid, who sent him to hospital for scans.
But at a public hospital in Sydney’s Kings Cross after 9pm on a Saturday, an AFL footballer arriving with what appeared to be sore ribs wasn’t high on the priority list.
After a few hours’ rest and some morphine, Lloyd was sent back to the team hotel with an Essendon physio.
Lloyd was consoled by his parents, John and Bev, who had travelled from Melbourne for the game, and several teammates, including close friend James Hird.
But as the hours went on, Lloyd asked people to stop visiting him in his hotel room. The morphine was wearing off. He was in debilitating pain.
The actions of Lloyd’s mother may have saved his life. Later that night, she helped her son almost crawl to the bathroom, where he passed blood.
She immediately called Reid back to the room and he examined Lloyd again.
“I was lying on the bed, screaming in pain,” Lloyd recalled. “And I remember Bruce looked at me and said, ‘Just tell me one thing. Do you have any shoulder pain?’
“I stopped and I said, ‘My shoulder is killing me.’”
Reid stopped in his tracks and looked at Lloyd’s parents, having read the symptoms.
“Call an ambulance, he’s got a ruptured spleen,” the doctor said.
Lloyd faced months of recovery, and ended up not being able to play in round one of 1997.
“It was pain unlike anything else I’ve had in my life. I apologised to the nurses at the end of it all because I was in such a bad way and wanted more painkillers from them,” Lloyd said.
“Dr Reid talked about it being in the top few scary moments he’s faced, where I could have easily have died.
“If I was left in a room to be by yourself and tried to tough it out to the next morning, that was a life-or-death situation for me.”
Lloyd was at the ground on Monday when Petracca was injured, calling the game for 3AW from a commentary box.
“During the call, I spoke about really a tough one for the Melbourne doctors because it’s hard to assess what’s going on internally, and I did think of my situation,” he said.
“Mine was far more innocuous, with Christian you could see the knee driving through his ribs.”
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