By Carly Rees | 1st August 2009
ONE of our finest polocrosse players, Sinclair Byrne, has been in a coma for about a week after he was seriously injured in a tragic accident while in Canada for the Calgary Stampede.
Sinclair left Australia in early May when he was offered a position to play in a polocrosse team in Calgary and to work with horses to earn money.
But last weekend Sinclair was left with serious head injuries after he fell off the back of a vehicle and has been in a coma at the Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary.
His father Tom said the family first received word of the accident in the early hours of Monday morning and his mother Jean and brother Ashley left to be by his side on Wednesday.
There they joined Sinclair’s brother Cameron, who was in Calgary at the time.
Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, Tom said there still had not been any improvement in Sinclair’s condition and there was not much which could be done at this stage.
“I have been talking with Jean every day to see how he is and so far there is no improvement; I should know more (today),” Tom said.
“If he comes all right I will be happy; I am just sitting here taking phone calls from people to see if he is all right.”
Sinclair played with the Killarney and Warwick polocrosse teams as well as representing Australia and also starred for the Killarney Cutters rugby league side before he ventured overseas.
Killarney Polocrosse Club president Col Bloomfield has known Sinclair for a number of years throughout his sporting career.
“He is very good on the field and is very well liked,” Mr Bloomfield said.
“It is a fairly distressing situation; it just shows that even with a simple accident anything can happen.”
Sinclair’s wife Sandy said she and sons Cody and Morgan were praying their husband and dad would come around and wanted to thank everyone for their support at a terrible time.