A REFEREE suffered a ruptured spleen and internal bleeding for 18 hours after a football was booted into her stomach. Ella Squires was overseeing a match at the Norway Cup in Oslo last year when the life-changing "freak" accident occurred five minutes in. 7 Ella Squires was hospitalised after being hit in the stomach by a football Credit: Kennedy News 7 The 19-year-old referee initially thought she was 'badly winded' Credit: Kennedy News The 19-year-old, who had been refereeing for three years, was unexpectedly hit in the stomach by a ball from a "stray pass" less than 10 yards away.
She immediately doubled over in pain but medics told the university student she had just been "badly winded". Unable to finish the second half, Ella left the tournament and went to hospital, where doctors said she had fractured a rib. But after collapsing on the ward, Ella was transferred to Oslo University Hospital, where scans revealed she had ruptured her spleen (a fist-sized organ in the upper left side of the abdomen, behind the left ribs) and had been internally bleeding for 18 hours.
Doctors told Ella that if she'd delayed treatment by just one more hour, she wouldn't be alive today. Ella, who is studying sports business and coaching, said: "I was refereeing and ended up getting a football to the abdomen. "I came off crying.
I was in so much pain. I didn't know what I'd done. "I thought I'd just been winded but the pain wasn't going away.
It felt like I couldn't breathe. Most read in Healt.
