A JOCKEY was “brought back to life” after a quick-thinking doctor drilled a hole in his chest seconds after a horror fall.
Brendan Sweeney, 51, was in a coma and left with catastrophic injuries in a three-horse fall at Darwin racecourse in Australia.
Sweeney crashed to earth and went into cardiac arrest when his horse clipped heels with another mid-race.
An anaesthetist who happened to be nearby jumped the fence and rushed to his aid.
Dad-of-two Sweeney said he would have died without the miracle worker as the paramedics on the track ‘didn’t know how to do what he did’.
The jockey, who will never ride again and is on a cocktail of daily drugs, told racenet.com.au: “An anaesthetist brought me back to life, I was so lucky he was there because the paramedics didn’t know how to do what he did and I would have died otherwise.
“He put a hole in my chest and brought me back to life.
“I don’t remember anything from when I had the fall and I have no memory of about a month after that when I was in a coma.
“I haven’t watched the replay of the fall, I don’t want to.
“My first memory was waking up in Adelaide and I had just got out of the coma, it was very, very scary.
“It’s a bit of a battle sometimes these days because when I bled on the brain it meant my left hand side wasn’t as good as my right hand side, so I’ve got a lot of weakness, like lifting my arms and legs up.
“I’ve got a brain injury and that will be there for a long time they reckon.
‘HAPPY TO BE ALIVE’
“I’m on a lot of tablets, about 10 a day, for various things.”
Sweeney, who once worked as a snake-catcher, was ultimately left with a bleed on the brain, a punctured lung and broken ribs after the fall in June.
Now he is just happy to be there for daughters Ebony, 20, and Sarah, five.
The jockey, who has 270 career wins and more than £1.2million in prize money, added: “I don’t have the s***s with anything that happened that day and I’m just happy to be alive and I can still see my daughters.
“My daughter Ebony flew up to Darwin when I had my fall and she was very scared.
“The doctors have said I will never ride again, but at least I can see my kids.
NEVER RIDE AGAIN
“I just take every day as it comes, when I do physical work I get very fatigued easily.
“I’m trying to do more exercise. I’ve got an exercise bike here and I get on it twice a day, morning and night.
“I am seeing doctors every day of the week and I go and see physios two or three times a week.
“I do feel like I’m improving every day though and I still love my racing and I watch the races when I can.”
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