Crows defender Kyle Hartigan says he was lucky not to lose his spleen after suffering internal bleeding in a nasty collision in the SANFL a fortnight ago.

Hartigan, 22, was hospitalised following a collision during Adelaide’s SANFL Showdown against the Port Magpies at Alberton last month.

The former rookie showed courage to go back with the flight of the ball in a marking contest and received a heavy knee to his side from an opponent. He crashed to the ground where he also sustained friendly fire from fellow backman, Ben Rutten.

Hartigan was rushed to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and diagnosed with a lacerated spleen, fractured rib and sprained AC joint. He spent nearly three days in Intensive Care and was placed under 24-hour observation for any signs of subsequent bleeding from his spleen.

“Our doctor at the game, Marc Cesana, was onto it very quickly. He called an ambulance and they got me to the hospital,” Hartigan.

“I had a CT scan and also an X-Ray. The X-Ray showed I broke my ninth rib and the CT scan showed I’d lacerated my spleen. I had some internal bleeding and they were a bit worried about me.

“One of the main concerns was that I could bleed out and need an operation to repair or remove my spleen. You can live without a spleen but it filters infections in your blood, so it’s a pretty important organ and I was lucky to hang onto it.

“The doctor was pretty surprised at how quick my recovery was and that I didn’t bleed more. With the amount of impact I had and the damage to the inside of the spleen, the doctor thought there would be a lot more bleeding. He said he’d seen people with lesser knocks bleed a lot more.

“I was very fortunate.”

Hartigan remained on a hospital bed in his muddied Crows shorts and socks for the first 36 hours because hospital staff didn’t want to risk moving him.

The former Werribee defender, who didn’t require pain killers until the morning after his hospital admission, was surprised by the severity of his diagnosis.

“I didn’t think anything was wrong initially. I felt a little bit of pain with the broken rib and strained AC joint, but there was no real pain with the spleen injury,” he said.

“I thought I was going straight home before the doctor told me the results of the scan.

“Even then, I wasn’t too worried. I knew I was in good hands. I was looked after very well by all the doctors and staff.”

Hartigan was able to watch Adelaide’s win over Collingwood from his hospital bed and was released from hospital on the Monday.

The injury has put an end to Hartigan’s season. Although he feels “fine”, there is a risk of subsequent bleeding and contact to the area is to be strictly avoided.

He’s already shifted his focus to the start of pre-season training.

“The plan from here is just to keep recovering. I’m not doing much at the moment. I can’t get knocks on my spleen. It’s pretty delicate, so I need to build up my recovery over the next few weeks,” Hartigan said.

“I’ll be right to go day one of pre-season and that’s the goal I’m working towards. I’ll make sure I do everything right and won’t do anything silly to aggravate it because I can injure it again very easily.”

Hartigan finishes the season with seven AFL games to his name.

The athletic tall showed promise as a key defender early in the season, but was disappointed he wouldn’t get an opportunity to force his way back into the team this year.

“I would’ve liked to play a few more games by being in better form and getting back into the team,” he said.

“I didn’t set myself a goal of playing a certain number of games because different factors come into play through the year. If you told me two years ago that I would’ve played 10 games of AFL after two years I would’ve said you were joking.

“I haven’t really looked back yet, but I’ll take some time later in the year to do that and set some goals for next year.”