Bath’s Alex Fletcher reflects on nearly dying, suffering brain damage and fractures to his skull after a collision with a wall mid-game.
On Tuesday, the 8th of November 2022, Bath City were taking on Dulwich Hamlet, with a tannoy announcement that the National League South match was abandoned.
Alex Fletcher, laid out on the pitch in a prone position at the time, was fighting for his own life after suffering multiple skull fractures as well as brain damage following a horrific collision with an advertising hoarding wall behind the goal, suffering a brain injury.
“I actually remember having a slight feeling of guilt,” he tells The Athletic in an interview.
Alex Fletcher was running down the wing on a Tuesday night. Moments later he was fighting for his life after a sickening collision with a pitch-side wall.
An interview with an inspirational young man, whose recovery has been described as a miracle.https://t.co/CzXMMAmMef
— Stuart James (@stujames75) April 17, 2023
Non-league striker Alex Fletcher fractured his skull colliding with concrete barriers next to the pitch for Bath City 🤕
He spent five days in a coma and suffered life changing injuries.
This is his story…#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/yfGfahvbY9
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) April 17, 2023
“Because I knew that on a Tuesday night, Dulwich had travelled down from London and I was like, ‘Oh no, they’re gonna have to travel down again’. I do genuinely remember that thought going through my head.”
Family and friends of the 24-year-old were told to prepare for the worst after he underwent emergency brain surgery at Southmead Hospital in Bristol.
Fletcher, in a neck brace, vomited over a paramedic in the back on the ambulance as they were on their way with his mother in the front and his father following behind in a car.
“I felt like if I fell asleep or passed out, that could have been it, really,” Fletcher says whilst also talking with The Guardian.
“I was telling myself: ‘You have to stay awake for as long as you can.’ I suppose it was that kind of sink-or-swim reaction. Then I remember the lights as I was wheeled into the hospital, really bright lights above my head. Subconsciously I knew I had made it somewhere where I would be looked after. I blanked out after that.”
The neurosurgeon said his injuries were similar to a motorcycle accident, not a National League South match.
Alex Fletcher: ‘I felt like if I passed out that could have been it really’ https://t.co/2TshK9L9YL
— The Guardian (@guardian) April 17, 2023
“They were given the worst news, that my chances were pretty slim and that even if I pulled through it might not be possible to live my life as it was before. My family were prepared for me waking up and not recognising them, or being a completely different person.”
“I was in theatre maybe for four or five hours, and then the surgeon came out and had to deliver the news to Ellie (his fiancee) and my family that I might not make it through the aftermath of that surgery,” Fletcher adds to The Athletic.
“And then, even if I did, there would be a slim chance that I would be the same person as before.
“Because of the place on my brain where I had the injury, there are different things that can go wrong. It controls movement, speech, hearing, eyesight, personality, regulates body temperature — everything that we do as normal people is controlled by the area of the brain that was impacted for me. So that news, when it was delivered to you, was…”
“Awful,” says his fiancé Ellie, who has been with him for 11 years and knew each other since school.
Fletcher endured five days in an induced coma at Southmead Hospital and 11 days in intensive care.
“I remember them (the doctors) saying, ‘It’s not days and weeks (to get better). It’s months and years’,” Ellie recalled.
“And I think that really shows the extent of the recovery. Not even six months ago we didn’t even know whether or not we would be leaving the hospital with you. And now you are exactly the same person as you were before.”
Fletcher currently has to wear glasses to help his double vision, which was severe in the early days with his brain continuing to heal, but he is however deaf in his left ear and was due to have a hearing aid fitted last week.
“I’m hoping that one day my vision will return and that will be quite a big factor because I can’t play football with two balls on the pitch,” he said to The Guardian, with a laugh to follow.
“The NHS is remarkable beyond words. He [the surgeon] would have received the call getting ready for bed that evening and was effectively briefed on the way to hospital. Then at the drop of a hat he is there ready to operate and save my life, which I just … I still struggle to get my head around to this day. Some people call, say, stepping up for a penalty pressure. It is nothing compared to what these guys do.”
He said on making sure Bath ground staff, physios and paramedics are dealt with in regards to help following what they witnessed: “I’ve had good catchups with them to check in on them and make sure that they have dealt with what happened in the right way.”
Earlier in his recovery, Fletcher received a video message from Raul Jimenez, who suffered a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain following an accidental collision with David Luiz in November 2020, encouraging him to “take things slowly and stay positive”. After following Jimenez’s advice, Fletcher would now like to follow in the Wolves striker’s footsteps by getting back out on the grass.
“I’m trying to reach out to the Wolves medical department to see how they rehabilitated him,” Fletcher says after he recalls having a video message sent to him early on in recovery by Raul Jimenez saying to “take things slowly and stay positive”.
Fletcher adds: “Every physio up and down the country knows how to rehab a hamstring or an ankle. But with this, it’s not a common injury for you to rehab.
“So if there’s any way that I could be in touch with them, and find out what they did to help Raul Jimenez, I’d like that.”
Meanwhile, Bath boss Jerry Gills also spoke of the incident: “I can see it vividly now. Alex was going at 100mph and, as he’s crossed it, he’s just got a little nudge, a really innocuous sort of nudge that spun him off balance, and because of the motion of him turning around, almost like on a 180-degree turn, he… I can still hear the noise, the thud.”
Lee Williams, Bath’s physio, added: “I got there quite quickly, with Sarah (Carr, Bath’s sports therapist), and it was evident from the initial position Alex was in, the blood and where that blood was coming from, that this was a serious incident.
“It was horrific. As the consultant said to us after, it was like somebody hitting a brick wall on a motorbike at 35mph without a crash helmet. It was that kind of impact.”
Fletcher said: “I heard this awful ringing noise in my ear, which I still hear now actually. But it was worse on the night. Through that (noise) I could hear voices and the paramedics and the medical team just trying to calm me down, telling me to stay awake, trying to just keep me with them, I guess.
“I was responding to that and really felt like I was making a big effort to stay awake because instantly I felt this drowsiness, like I wanted to slip into a sleep. But when I heard the stadium announcer say that the game had been abandoned, that’s probably when I knew it must be a serious injury.”
“There were over 1,000 in there that night and it fell completely silent,” manager Jerry Gill adds. “Even when they all started to leave the stadium, after the game was abandoned, all you could hear was just the tap of feet. It was really eerie. The stadium emptied quickly and then Alex was left there with all of us.”
“If I’m being brutally honest with you, I didn’t expect Alex to make it,” physio Lee Williams emotionally said. “And I didn’t want his parents to see their son die. That’s the truth.”
“It doesn’t,” he says. “You don’t expect a 23-year-old lad to travel up from Newton Abbot to play football and to end up dead. That just does not feature on your radar at all. I’ve dealt with breaks and dislocations and all that kind of stuff — that’s all part of contact sport. That isn’t nice but it’s not life-threatening.
“But my overriding concern was that, as a parent myself, I didn’t want them to see their son in that way because I honestly thought that was what was going to happen.”
An ambulance took 45 minutes to arrive at Twerton Park with Williams saying “every one of those minutes felt like an hour”.
“That ambulance ride was the worst journey I’ve ever been on in my life,” Fletcher said on the ambulance trip. “It was so uncomfortable. I was in a neck brace on a stretcher. I think my mum was in the front of the ambulance and the paramedic was there with me, in the back, and I was moaning the whole way about my head hurting. I even vomited over him just because of the effects of what had happened.
“But when I eventually got to the hospital, I remember being wheeled out the back of the ambulance and seeing the bright lights of the hospital above me. And it was at that point that I knew I was where I needed to be.
“And I don’t remember anything for the next five days after that, until I woke up in the ICU (intensive care unit).”
Gill was relieved Fletcher was with medics and on his way to the hospital.
“We all went back into the dressing rooms once Alex had gone and what do you do then?” he said.
“No one wants to go home. We wanted to all stay together for a bit. We put some tea on upstairs in the hospitality suites, and made sure the players were OK. Some of them had to drive home. We didn’t know what sort of state of mind they’d be in, especially the boys he travels up with.”
Gill says: “I stayed awake the majority of the night, just worrying and thinking about Alex, and it wasn’t till 7:30 in the morning that I actually got some news from his dad, Paul. It was a long, detailed message starting off with, ‘It’s not good news, mate’, and then you fear the worst. When you read a line like that, it’s like, ‘Jesus’.”
Fletcher, who is back doing his day job as a project manager for a software development company, says he is also campaigning with the Professional Footballers’ Association for improved regulations to ensure that the perimeters of football grounds are made safer for players.
“I’m no expert, I can’t tell you what is a safe distance or what would be a safe material,” says Fletcher. “But I think we can all agree that having a brick wall around a football pitch where you’re going hell for leather trying to get the better of your opponent… you wouldn’t put a brick wall at the end of a 100m track where you’re flat-out trying to beat your opponent. It’s no different to a football pitch.”
You can read the full interviews Alex Fletcher, his staff, teammates and partner had on the incident and what followed by clicking on the following links below.
Alex Fletcher: ‘I felt like if I passed out that could have been it really’ – The Guardian
Alex Fletcher: ‘The surgeon said I might not make it’ – The Athletic
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