A KICK boxer died yesterday after collapsing in front of his family during a fight in Co Tyrone. Mr Sean McBride (18), from Dungannon, was carried from the ring as his parents and three sisters looked on. He never regained consciousness.
Said his distraught mother, Mary: "We tried to reach him but couldn't get through the crowd. It's unbelievable.
Mr McBride, a meat plant worker, fell at the end of his contest at an hotel near Dungannon. He was taken to South Tyrone Hospital and then transferred to the Royal Victoria hospital, Belfast, where he was put on a life support machine. He died yesterday.
At her home at Killeshill Road, Cabra, Mrs McBride said: "Football and boxing was his life. I didn't want to stop him fighting - I didn't want to be on his back because I knew it meant too much to him. He trained two nights a week and every Saturday. He had won a couple of trophies and they were his pride and joy."
Mrs McBride, her husband, Sean, and three daughters, Ciara, Fiona and Aime, were sitting back from the ringside among the crowd at the Glengannon Hotel where her son collapsed on Friday night, apparently after being stuck a blow on the back of the head.
His funeral takes place tomorrow.
Mr Paul Hughes (22), secretary of Killeshill GAA football club, said the team was shattered by Sean's death. He said Sean was a substitute defender and had been pushing for a place on the side which played in Division Two of the Tyrone all county league.
"Everybody in the district is terribly upset because Sean was so popular. He was a happy go lucky sort of person and everybody liked him" he said.
Michael Foley writes: The kick boxing world champion, Dubliner Roy Baker, accepted that kick boxing was a dangerous sport. However, he suggested the risk was greater in Northern Ireland because there was no governing body which insisted on putting in place the sort of regulations which exist in the South.
Mr Baker said, like all contact sport, it was necessary to reduce risk. Competitions could not take place without a neuro surgeon and an ambulance present.
He said competitors should all wear head guards, groin guards, gloves and pads for the feet, which protect against cutting.