From quality of life, to potentially fighting for life: Sam Mitchell’s New York City ordeal

On December 20, Sam Mitchell’s long-planned family trip to New York took its first dramatic turn when he collapsed on the floor of the family-friendly Tick Tock Diner on Eighth Avenue.

The 41-year-old Hawthorn coach put the episode down to dehydration, but because he had been lying on the floor motionless for nigh on two minutes, his wife Lyndall insisted he get checked out.

Mitchell wanted to go back to their room, but common sense prevailed. An ambulance was on its way.

Having spent the previous day not feeling 100 per cent, he’d pushed through on Panadol as the family walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. Mitchell felt on top of the world before he left so thought he’d fight off whatever it was with plenty of fluids and common sense.

Sam Mitchell in coaching mode last year.Credit: AFL Photos

However, after a restless night spent tossing and turning, he shocked Lyndall when he told her over breakfast that he would have to stay in his room rather than spend the day with the family at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.

“I’d been fighting it and fighting it, and fighting it. I got up as if to go back to the room and I got three or four metres [away] and then I just woke up on the ground,” he said.

As the paramedics examined him, they speculated the incident might have been heart-related and Mitchell hoped they would let him recover in his room without drama.

But when he passed out again mid-sentence while in the back of the ambulance, any doubt about what was required disappeared: He was taken to the New York University Hospital for a battery of tests.

Lyndall knew West Coast coach Adam Simpson was in New York as he’d arranged to meet her husband for dinner. He was the only familiar person in Manhattan she could turn to at that moment of need. When she called and told him what was happening, he did not hesitate. “I’ll meet you at the hospital in 15 minutes,” Simpson said.

Premiership coach Adam Simpson in 2018.Credit: Joe Armao

The Eagles coach took the three Mitchell children off Lyndall’s hands while she supported Sam as he waited on a bed in the middle of a busy corridor in a hectic New York emergency department. Lyndall also rang Hawks football manager Rob McCartney, who alerted board member and doctor Anne-Marie Pellizzer and sent a message to the club’s media manager Matt Dixon as a formality.

After somewhere between four and seven hours waiting in hospital, a period of time that, because of his dazed state, remains unclear to Mitchell, the pair received good news. “I’ll never forget the guy. He walked up to me and said, ’Blood test is back, you’ve got Flu A. The relief was like, ‘Thank God’,” Mitchell said.

He was told he could return to his hotel and to stay hydrated, but the prognosis was good. Despite being knocked about, he was reassured he should be in reasonable shape within a couple of days.

That thinking would be short-lived.

THIS IS SERIOUS

The next morning, Mitchell could not move from his bed and his responses to Lyndall’s questions were coming in half-hour intervals. She decided calling another ambulance was the only option.

“I felt like every organ in my body was on fire and they were putting more things on top of me.”

Sam Mitchell

There were no arguments from Mitchell this time. He was in his own world, just four days out from Christmas.

“It went from quality of life to life, not how can I have a good holiday,” Mitchell said.

As he was carted through the foyer of their hotel, he heard the paramedics warn him that the short trip from the exit to the ambulance would be rather cold. It was: the temperature on the morning of December 21 in New York was minus 2 degrees (Celsius).

The Mitchell family: Sam, Scarlett, Lyndall, Smith, and Emmerson in New York the day before Sam’s first trip to hospital.

The ambulance officers wrapped him in a puffer jacket to protect him from the icy blast. But Mitchell wasn’t feeling a chill. “I felt like every organ in my body was on fire and they were putting more things on top of me,” he said. “‘Uncomfortable’ is not the right word, but I don’t know what is. It was genuinely like some form of torture.”

He did not have the strength to resist, even if he wanted to do so.

Lyndall watched helplessly as her husband was loaded into the ambulance. Sweat soaked the pillow his head rested on.

In a foreign city, with three children – Smith, and twins Emmerson and Scarlett – on the verge of becoming teenagers, Lyndall’s holiday was about to become anything but for the next week.

The first hospital visit had merely been an entree.

Mitchell – the Brownlow medallist, four-time premiership champion and one of the most promising coaches in the game – was just an anonymous Australian dad on holiday in New York, but one who had contracted a serious bout of pneumonia.

But the diagnosis would not become clear for days as Lyndall and local medicos, and key Hawthorn medical staff, worked around the clock to ensure he was well cared-for as he entered the fight of his life.

GAME ON

This time Lyndall’s call to McCartney stressed the seriousness of the situation, and led to a mobilising of Hawthorn people who could help. Pellizzer stepped up to speak to Lyndall, and Mitchell family friend and former Hawks board member, Professor Andrew Kaye – a neurologist working in Israel – was contacted too.

Mitchell was assessed by an assortment of doctors, nurses, nurses’ aides, orderlies and general staff in the hospital. But determining who had responsibility for what, and how to command the right person’s attention at the right time, was tricky for Lyndall, who was alone and uncertain as to what was an appropriate response and what was an overreaction.

Mitchell’s blood oxygen level was spasmodically dipping below the safe range of 92 into the 80s, and his temperature remained above 100 (Fahrenheit). This was not good. When the blood oxygen level drops below the safe range, a patient is at risk of suffering tissue damage or organ failure if action isn’t taken.

Sam with daughter Scarlett on the New York subway after his hospital stay.

Pellizzer and Kaye could get a rough idea of what was happening via photos Lyndall was sending them of the screens surrounding her husband. They were concerned, encouraging Lyndall to pressure the busy doctors to focus on him. Sympathetic to the harried staff, they also knew that in that hectic environment Mitchell would need an advocate to alert staff to his situation.

With his temperature high and oxygen levels unstable, there was no time to waste. But Lyndall did not want to be precious or demanding, inside a hospital of all places. Eventually, with Pellizzer and Kaye almost yelling at her to ensure a doctor created space for her husband, she realised there was no option and demanded a doctor take charge. It was lucky for Mitchell that she did.

As soon as the doctor on the ward took one look at Mitchell’s chart, she realised urgent care was needed. Staff swept into action to stabilise his position while they got a handle on what had caused the illness.

An array of blood tests, CAT scans, and X-rays were taken. IV drips and other treatments were started while all sorts of potential problems from heart issues to blood clots were aired to Lyndall as she relayed information to Pellizzer and Kaye. At one stage Kaye told her he would have to ring her back as he was mid-operation.

Lyndall stayed calm, and at no point thought her husband was not going to make it through, but when scenarios such as the possibility of a heart attack or blood clots were floated, it was hard for her mind to not wander.

Mitchell can only imagine how hard that time was for his wife: “The fear is in the unknown,” he said.

He was lucky enough to be oblivious to most of what was happening around his bed – laughing now as he recalls the absurdity of him telling Lyndall at one point she needed to relax.

Eventually, once Mitchell’s condition had been stabilised, the full extent of what was attacking his body became clear.

At one stage Kaye told her he would have to ring her back as he was mid-operation.

Former Hawthorn board member Professor Andrew Kaye played a key role in supporting Sam Mitchell.

He had a laundry list of ailments: Influenza A, para influenza, superadded bacterial pneumonia, and a form of food poisoning – campylobacter gastroenteritis – and a range of other infections. All of that combined was neatly described by a diagnosis of pneumonia. “It’s bacterial pneumonia, which means it’s quite treatable, but quite aggressive,” Mitchell said. This condition infects the lungs and, if not treated quickly, can work through the body like Pac-Man.

“The first X-ray was like, oh, we can see some collapsing of the lung and the second X-ray, 24 or 36 hours later, [read] extensive collapsing of both lungs,” Mitchell said.

Sam Mitchell.Credit: Pam Morris

Mitchell, a fit and healthy man, was never placed in intensive care but the potential was high that he could have slid into a life-threatening state as his oxygen levels dipped.

“It’s the beginning of multi-organ failure [and] tissue damage,” he said. “As soon as you go below around 92 you start to get tissue degeneration and nasty stuff. I was sort of hovering.”

After two nights in emergency, he was admitted to a ward in the infectious diseases unit of the hospital. It was then he was told he would not be released for Christmas. He had not seen his children since he had been admitted as they weren’t allowed into his area. Lyndall had not slept, spending nights on the phone, days by his bedside, and ensuring the children were safe and cared for.

Mitchell was desperate to get out. “The most emotional I got was when they said: ‘You’re not coming out for Christmas day’,” he said.

But he was now safe enough for Lyndall to resume something of a holiday: She took the children to the basketball and around the sights of New York.

Mitchell is now back to full health with no problems anticipated as he heads into his third season as Hawthorn senior coach.

“The most emotional I got was when they said: ‘You’re not coming out for Christmas day’.”

Mitchell on what the doctors told him in hospital

MITCHELL’S GRATITUDE

His admiration as to how Lyndall managed such a crazy situation, and the resilience his children showed throughout the ordeal, is part of why he agreed to retell his story this week while on the Hawks’ training camp in Torquay.

He wanted everyone to know that he is fine now with no residual impact on his health.

He also wants to express his gratitude to his wife, who emerged as the narrative’s real hero. She credits the support of McCartney, Pellizzer and Kaye as critical as they went above and beyond to ensure the story had a happy ending. Insiders say that trio have suggested that without Lyndall’s cool head in the three days when things were touch and go, Mitchell’s ordeal could have been much worse.

He also highlighted the role others played, such as Simpson – who coached Mitchell at the Eagles and had him as an assistant in West Coast’s 2018 premiership season – who responded to a call for help from Lyndall when it was needed most. Even Dixon, who alerted the Hawthorn players and then managed the media as it became public in Australia and concerned friends began contacting the Mitchells.

Last, but not least, the medical team in New York who nursed just another stranger back to health.

“It’s really corny saying Hawthorn is a great place to work with great people … until you realise how true that cliche is when you need them,” Mitchell said.

That’s what he told the players when he returned as he thanked them and their partners and families for their messages and concern.

Mitchell, the Hawthorn player, with his young children in 2013.Credit: Getty Images

After he was released from hospital on the 27th, the Mitchells lay together on the hotel bed watching TV, reunited and reassured by doing something so simple. Their holiday would need to be extended as Mitchell could not fly until the doctors were comfortable his lungs were in good enough shape.

“We had an OK holiday in the end,” Mitchell said. “It was seven or eight days out of a trip that stretched from December 17 to January 12.”

The children did not complain once.

“I can’t believe how resilient they were,” he said.

The family picked up the pieces and soldiered on to enjoy Los Angeles, visiting Disneyland and other sights before departure day arrived on January 11.

ONE FINAL DRAMA

After filling in time at The Grove shopping complex in LA between checking out and preparing to depart America, they returned the hire car to the airport. Mitchell initially asked which of the children had left the window open before it dawned on him that the window was broken. A quick check revealed that all their backpacks containing passports, computers and headphones, were gone.

Due to arrive at the airport in six hours, they once again had the cards stacked against them. A tracking device linking Mitchell’s phone to the AirPods gave the LAPD a slim chance of tracking down the thieves and, with luck, the all-important passports.

The long arm of the law did not muck around when helping the hapless Aussies, with Mitchell passing on information that showed one bag on the move and one stationary, assumed dumped, as another squad car raced around town to catch the crooks.

“I’m showing the police saying, ‘look, here, and here. It pinged. It pinged again’,” Mitchell said.

Using the tracking device and CCTV footage, they apprehended the perpetrators, but the passports were nowhere to be seen. Finally, their intel led the police to a bus stop on a median strip in LA, but there is still no sign of a backpack.

“Eventually, the police checked a bin and the AirPods were in there with the passports,” Mitchell said.

Three hours later the Mitchells were through security, ready to return from a break that saw them experience what Clark Griswold may have described as “a full-blown, four-alarm holiday emergency” and survived to tell the tale.

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