St Kilda forward Paddy McCartin said he was desperately struggling with the symptoms of repeated concussions and could not put a timeframe on a return to AFL football.

Asked how he was feeling McCartin, 23, said: ''not great to be honest, it's been a tough past few months''.

"I've lost my footy identity a bit but also a bit ot my identity as a person,'' McCartin told Triple M after he was placed on St Kilda's long-term injury list.

McCartin said he had struggled to ''do basic things'' whether it was supermarket shopping, going to the cafe or driving his car, and described his girlfriend as "virtually a full-time carer''.

 

For this to happen to a young man is so sad. Get well Paddy.

 

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/luckless-saint-mccartin-on-long-term-injury-list-20190526-p51r8j.html

Surely has to retire from footy.  Not worth it.

Poor bugger. 

Yep finished unfortunately, not worth it, hope he gets better stuff football 

Heart breaking stuff. 

Put into perspective the issues Gus and KK have gone thru and I suppose will always go thru. 

Would be crazy to play again...

AFL Football wasn’t meant to be for Paddy

Type 1 diabetes plus concussion- not a good combo 

I had one severe concussion as a child of about 9 as a result of an accident at school, and I wasn’t right for months. The feeling of being confused and agitated all the time, being unable to concentrate or remember words is bloody awful. Hearing about stuff like this, or the Daniel Bell case, really gives me chills.

Hard hits and collisions are part of the thing I love most about footy. I was super proud of Hibberd when he was injured because he saw it coming but went in anyway, and would have been in a huge amount of pain as a result. But your brain is just so god damn important. Most of the time I have to ignore concussion as the elephant in the room, because if I think about it too much it will ruin footy for me.

I really hope he makes a full recovery. I won’t say whether I think he should retire, because that’s a very personal decision and I don’t have all the information, but gee it doesn’t sound good.

That was a heart breaking article to read. I hope Paddy is able to recover and live a normal heathy life after footy. Health and wellbeing are more important than a game.