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<\/p>\nA 27-year old man is in a critical condition after sustaining a serious head injury during a local match in Melbourne’s north this afternoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Victoria Police confirmed emergency services were called to Lalor Reserve at Sydney Crescent at about 1pm, after a “man sustained a serious head injury during play”.<\/p>\n
The player was taken to hospital, where he is in a critical condition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The match between the Epping and Lalor Reserves was abandoned after the incident, with the senior game also cancelled.<\/p>\n
‘Really shaken souls’<\/p>\n
Epping Football Netball Club president Luke De Vincentis said the injury happened when one of the Epping players went in for a tackle of a Lalor player, colliding with his teammate who went to do the same thing.<\/p>\n
Mr De Vincentis said there was a “clash of heads” between the two, before the injured player fell to the ground, landing on the cricket pitch in the middle of the oval.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“He’s landed a double head knock, essentially,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said the incident had resulted in “quite a few really shaken souls” around the club, but said the members were supporting one another.<\/p>\n
Mr De Vincentis said the club had decided to proceed with a planned function on Saturday night, so that “everyone was together… rather than being on their own” after “a really tough day”. \u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Epping Football Netball Club president has praised the quick actions of the medical team. (ABC News: Daniel Miles)<\/p>\n
He praised the responses of both Lalor and Epping football clubs’ medical teams, with the head medic doing CPR until emergency services arrived and took over.<\/p>\n
“It was really incredible that in the moment, despite how shocking it was, the way the medical teams from both clubs handled it,” he said.<\/p>\n
‘Football comes second’<\/p>\n
In a post on social media, Lalor Football Netball Club said it extended its “thoughts and best wishes to the player, their family, teammates and the entire Epping community”.<\/p>\n
“We wish them a full and speedy recovery,” the club said.<\/p>\n
“We would also like to sincerely thank the players, coaches, officials, medical personnel, emergency services and supporters from both clubs who assisted and supported those involved throughout the incident.<\/p>\n
“Football comes second on days like these. Our focus remains on the wellbeing of the player and everyone involved.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 27-year old man is in a critical condition after sustaining a serious head injury during a local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[34042,34041,3014,34040,34043,260],"class_list":["post-44395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-melbourne","tag-critical-condition","tag-epping","tag-football","tag-head-injury","tag-lalor-football-club","tag-melbourne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}