By Jonathan Brown
In the second part of the Blast from the Past interview with former soccer goalkeeper Ciaran McLaughlin, he recalls the incident in which he almost lost his life.
Having called time on his Down career at the start of the month following defeat in the 1999 Ulster final, Ciaran was looking forward to concentrating on life at Cliftonville when he lined out to play Ballymena United at the end of August 1999. But after accidentally colliding with Ballymena striker Glenn Hunter’s knee during the latter stages of the game, the goalkeeper’s life was suddenly in the balance when he swallowed his tongue.
Ciaran explained the incident: “I was conscious, but I went into convulsions; my legs and hands were banging off the ground, my two feet twisted that much that both my football boots came off. It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me, I couldn’t control what I was doing. I can remember the players gathering round me and I can remember looking up and seeing their faces blue with fear. A couple were crying.”
He goes on to describe an “out-of-body experience.” “All of a sudden, I was looking down above Solitude, seeing the whole thing unfold – I was able to see it all clearly. By the grace of God, there was a club doctor there at the game, he had a tongue scoop and was able to get my tongue back out again, but I was clinically dead, I was gone. Once he got my tongue out, I tried to get up, but then I collapsed.”
“An ambulance came and I was taken to the Mater Hospital. I woke up in a hospital bed, still in my goalkeeper kit. There was a man walking about with a newspaper cart – all of the back pages had my face on it.”
Ciaran believes that had Cliftonville’s former club doctor John Campbell not been present at the game, he wouldn’t be here today. “The club doctor wasn’t always at the games back in those days, but John was a diehard Cliftonville supporter, so he was always there. Had he not been there, I was gone.”
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