AFTER SUFFERING THREE broken ribs and a punctured lung in a hurling match earlier this month, an oxygen tank kept a Waterford junior club player breathing while he waited almost an hour for an ambulance to arrive.
Now, An Rinn’s Eoghan Breathnach is calling for all GAA clubs in Ireland to ensure oxygen tanks are installed at their grounds.
The 37-year-old teacher was speaking on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta’s An Saol ó Dheas programme, where he explained how he shipped a routine belt of a hurl during the game before he had trouble breathing and later collapsed.
“You get a certain amount of belts like that in any match and I thought I was just winded, but then the medic from Ballysaggart came over and said that she thought I had broken ribs,” he told Helen Ní Shé. “I started to head towards the car with the manager to go to the doctor, but I collapsed after 10 steps.
“I was out of breath, and the breathing got harder and harder over the next 15 to 20 minutes. After that, I couldn’t breathe really. The medic, Tina Ní Mheachair, sent her brother down to her mother’s house to bring back her mother’s oxygen tank. Without that, I was in big trouble.”
The ambulance took 50 minutes to arrive and Breathnach was thankful for the use of the oxygen tank as he waited.
“It was frightening alright, I was okay for the first five or 10 minutes after it happened, I was able to breathe a bit, and I knew help was on the way, but as time was moving on I was worried that I was really in trouble. And of course, my wife Caroline was there, and it wasn’t nice for her to be seeing all that.
“Except for the oxygen, I’d be a goner, I’m sure of that. After 20 minutes I had no breath left myself, I couldn’t do it anymore, and the ambulance didn’t arrive for 50 minutes, so I wouldn’t have had a hope without it.”
After paramedics arrived he was airlifted by helicopter to University Hospital Limerick, where he spent 10 days with a tube in his chest. Breathnach plans on returning to work at Gaelscoil Thiobraid Árann shortly and hopes his story will encourage GAA clubs to introduce oxygen tanks.
“I think that the GAA should look at getting oxygen tanks for every GAA club around the country. Most clubs now have a defibrillator. The oxygen would be great if someone is badly hurt, or has broken a leg, or for an underage match with kids with asthma, it’s a brilliant resource and it costs a lot less than a defibrillator.”
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