SEAN FINN HAS admitted he tried to defy the Limerick medics to stay on the field after suffering a concussion against Cork in their league clash in February.
The four-time All-Star defender received a heavy hit from Shane Kingston, who was subsequently sent-off, and failed a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) examination.
Finn tried to guess the correct answers during the assessment but said he’d have been a “hazard” to himself had he been allowed to return to action.
He was submitted and spent the night in hospital as a precaution.
“It was my first concussion,” he said.
“I can see why you wouldn’t want a number of them. It’s quite serious.
“I was keen to come on the field at the time. I was trying to make up the answers to what they were asking me – I think I got them all wrong!
“(I suffered) a loss of memory really. Severe headaches. But at the moment, I got up, came off the field, tried to make up the answers. They probably weren’t clear and they probably knew that I wasn’t right but, again, it was up to them to make that decision.
“They said the best thing was to just keep me off. I was just shook. I didn’t train for 10 or 12 days, then returned to training.”
Finn agrees that the decision shouldn’t be in the hands of the players.
“If they said, ‘You can go on go on, Sean’ I would have went on but that wasn’t the right thing to do but it was good that I wasn’t in the position to make that decision. It was important that they used their initiative even though it might be the hard call to make.
“I think it’s natural that you want to play. It’s just the competitive nature that the player has but I think it’s important that the medical team take their own initiative on it too.
“It was only maybe 10 minutes later where I really showed symptoms of real concussion so if I was probably a delayed reaction. If I was out on the pitch 10 minutes later I was a hazard to myself.”
The symptoms became more severe and he couldn’t remember where he’d been sitting in the dressing room.
“I didn’t know where I was really. Didn’t know where my gear bag was in the dressing room. Couldn’t remember the goals going in.
“Couldn’t remember the score and stuff like that and what way we were playing so to be honest after a couple of hours I came around and I was fine but I’d be a hazard to myself if I was allowed back onto that field.”
