O'Driscoll traumatised by mysterious NZ nurse

O'Driscoll likened it to "picking over the bones of the Lions corpse". Picture / Herald file

Rugby and medical officials are baffled over the mystery nurse who apparently traumatised Lions captain Brian O'Driscoll after he dislocated his shoulder against the All Blacks.

In an extract from his tour diary, published in the Guardian newspaper in Britain yesterday, the Irish star tells how a "nurse-physio" started to cut his Lions shirt off and tried to souvenir it as he lay in agony in the Jade Stadium medical room.

O'Driscoll likened it to "picking over the bones of the Lions corpse".

"Then, and I still can't believe this, the nurse asked me if she could have my Lions shirt," he wrote.

"Mother of God, what was she thinking? I've been speared off the bloody pitch after just 40 seconds of a test series and she wants the shirt off my back as well.

"What is wrong with this bloody country? Just start treating me like a human being, will you?"

The Order of St John was baffled by O'Driscoll's comments and said it did not have a nurse in the medical room at the test in June.

"We are puzzled who that woman was," spokeswoman Amy McDermott said yesterday. "We did not provide any medical treatment to injured players; that was controlled by the Lions medical team.

"We only supplied his transport from the pitch to the medical room and later on to the hospital, and again under supervision of the Lions medical team."

Canterbury regional operations manager Chris Haines said O'Driscoll might be referring to a Lions medical team member. "That appears to be the case ... We're scratching our head about this one."

The NZ Rugby Union said it, too, was unable to identify the mystery nurse as "there is only a match doctor on duty", but was surprised by O'Driscoll's comments.

"It is all news to us," said NZRFU spokesman Brian Finn. "None of the complaints that Brian O'Driscoll has raised coincide with any of the issues raised by the Lions management during our debriefing."

The recollections have also mystified the union-appointed match doctor for the test, Stephen Targett.

"It's the first I've heard anything like that. I didn't witness anything like that," Dr Targett said.

He said he was "around" at the time, but did not attend to O'Driscoll.

A more serious issue that was raised by the Lions in the debriefing was the absence of morphine to ease O'Driscoll's pain.

Mr Finn said the medical officer with the morphine had gone to the rescue of a fan suffering a fatal heart attack outside the front gate, "which unfortunately just happened exactly at the same time".

He said the match doctor administered an interim painkiller for O'Driscoll and the morphine was available within minutes.

In his diary, O'Driscoll renews his attack on All Blacks captain Tana Umaga and hooker Keven Mealamu, claiming he could have broken his neck in the tackle.

- STAFF REPORTER, NZPA