‘Equivalent to a car accident’: Petracca describes traumatic internal injuries

Christian Petracca says his sickening injuries in the King’s Birthday clash were akin to a “car accident” and prevented him from even being put under anaesthetic during surgery which has ruled the star Melbourne midfielder out for the rest of the season.

In a raw interview on Tuesday which will have many football fans squirming, Petracca detailed the traumatic events which followed the knee to the back he copped from Collingwood captain – and his good friend – Darcy Moore in a marking contest close to quarter-time in last Monday’s blockbuster at the MCG.

The 2021 Norm Smith medallist left the field for treatment but returned soon after, before he was subbed out of the game and taken by ambulance to hospital, where it took time for doctors to realise the gravity of his injuries. From his initial scans, it was thought his injuries were contained to two broken ribs.

Now at home, having left hospital on Sunday, Petracca is recovering from surgery, having been diagnosed with four fractured ribs, a punctured lung and a lacerated spleen.

“I don’t think we all understood the severity of it, to be honest. I think we got an initial scan around 8pm (or) 9pm. The first scan showed two cracked ribs, and then just a little bit of bleeding around the lung,” Petracca told Nova radio station.

“I don’t know what happened. I think 15 minutes later one of the doctors was just checking my blood levels and noticed my haemoglobin was dropping severely, and my blood levels were dropping. So I [had] another scan, and that’s when they noticed on the next scan I had four cracked ribs, a grade-five spleen [laceration] and a punctured lung, too.

“It went from being a four out of 10, to basically a 10 out of 10 – equivalent to a car accident. It seemed pretty full on. I had to go straight into surgery at 2am; open surgery. I wasn’t under anaesthetic because my blood levels were so low.”

Petracca said he knew immediately that Moore’s knee had caused damage, but the extent of this wasn’t known until much later.