KEVIN MCHUGH HAS revealed the distressing moments of last Wednesday evening when he realised he had severed a finger.
The 36-year-old Finn Harps captain was setting up a coaching session with the Donegal Soccer Academy when, while attempting to jump over a fence to obtain a set of goalposts, his wedding ring got caught in the fence.
McHugh disjointed his finger, but managed to somehow compose himself and drive to Letterkenny University Hospital.
The Killea native this morning told BBC Radio Foyle’s Barry Whyte how he telephoned fellow Donegal Soccer Academy coach Mel O’Donnell as he was on his way.
[adrotate group=”85″]“I realised that I didn’t have the finger with me and I knew I’d need it for the hospital,” McHugh said.
“He’ll probably never get a phonecall like that again.
“I rang him, he hadn’t seen how bad it was and said: “Could you do me a favour and go back and get my finger of the fence?” He did. He followed me up to the hospital with it.”
Although the severed finger was put in ice overnight, medics in Galway, where McHugh was transported for surgery, the finger couldn’t be saved.
[adrotate group=”80″]McHugh recalled: “I jumped the gate…The ring got caught and the rest is history.
“When my two feet landed on the ground, it felt like the ring was tugged on. Once I looked down at my hands there was no finger there and I was like: ‘Christ!’.
“I looked at the two boys, Dessie McGlinchey and BJ Banda, they were sheet white and in complete shock.”
Banda was particularly distressed at what he witnessed.
McHugh tweeted a gruesome picture of his hand and said the pain was such that he could ‘feel my heart pumping out of my chest’.
Kevin McHugh’s season might well be over after nasty finger injury
McHugh has scored 186 goals in 438 appearances for Harps since making his debut in August 1998, but there’ll be no farewell appearance for the legendary striker now.
He said: “My season is completely over. I was planning on hanging up the boots anyway. It’s not the way I planned to say goodbye, but that’s the way it is. The decision is made for me now.”
[adrotate group=”38″]Listen to the interview with Kevin McHugh by Barry Whyte of BBC Radio Foyle below…
