Former Carlow footballer Brian Kelly is on the road to recovery after almost losing his life following a collision with an opponent. The Palatine clubman sustained a fractured skull and brain clot after he clashed heads with an opposing player during a club championship match three weeks ago, but only discovered the seriousness of the injury when he was rushed to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin for brain surgery. He explained: "They noticed bleeding in the brain and rang my GP and he told me I had to go to casualty immediately in Kilkenny. "They kept me overnight and did a CAT scan and other tests and sent the results to a neurosurgeon in Beaumont. On Wednesday, the doctor came down and told me I should be alright and it was only slight bleeding, so I packed my bags and got ready to go. "But I was sent up to Beaumont where they told me I'd have to have a brain operation straight away. Then the neurosurgeon told me he was going to monitor the clot for 24 hours to see if it was growing, dissipating or stable." Fortunately, Kelly didn't require surgery and the clot should dissolve within the next six-to-eight weeks. But he believes he would have died if it wasn't for Palatine manager Mick Lillis. "I was finding it sore but just thought it was concussion working its way through the system," the trainee-garda said. "I went down to the club for a training session and was togged out but Mick Lillis wouldn't let me train. I'm grateful to everyone in the club for not letting me train because the surgeon said if I fell or got a knock at it, I would probably be dead." Tweet

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