Doctor delays Mills’ return to next season
MAY PEN, Clarendon — While Mike Henry, chairman of Humble Lions FC, is hoping that their star striker Kemar Mills will return to full action by February, the doctor who is overseeing the player’s recovery thinks it is best to wait until next season so as to allow his skull to heal properly.
Dr Peter Charles, who has been guiding Mills’ recovery since his near fatal injury in May of last year, believes that if Mills is to return without his skull being properly healed it could cause further damage.
“Kemar has a depressed skull fracture. The bone came out and it was bleeding. The bone remains depressed. He cannot head the ball or allow anything to hit it (his head) so what I have told him is to wait until next season when it is healed properly for him to return,” Dr Charles told the Observer on Sunday.
Mills suffered a traumatic head injury in May while playing in the final of the South Central Confederation Super League against Bodles FC.
The 28-year-old Garvey Maceo past student was “knocked unconscious by a Bodles defender as both challenged for a ball inside the penalty area during the Confederation title decider”, the Observer reported back in June.
However, last month the Humble Lions fraternity was optimistic that Mills would have regained full fitness in time for him to make his return to football this month.
“The recovery is going fine; he has one final appointment with the doctor on the 21st of December and I expect the doctor to approve him for January,” Henry told the Observer early last month.
However, on Sunday while speaking about the acquisition of new players at the club, Henry said: “I still don’t have my leading striker from Confed, Kemar Mills… he still has another four weeks to go before he plays.”
However, while Dr Charles has noted that Mills’ recovery has been coming on fine, he is recommending that he (Mills) does not push it.
Additionally, the doctor said if they had operated on it initially, the recovery time would have been much shorter, as these types of injuries take about four months to heal.
“He has been doing well, but his bone remains depressed. If we had operated on it when it first happened it would have taken him four months, but because we decided to observe it and let it heal properly, it will take some time,” explained Dr Charles.