Fighter Ryan was left paralysed after a freak injury in training but never gave up recovery hope
Dubliner Ryan Curtis (31) suffered a broken back, broken neck and dislocated spine during a training session in Belfast last year.
The father-of-one ended up in ICU in the Royal Victoria Hospital, where he stayed for three months. He was later transferred to Musgrave Park, eventually leaving the city in a wheelchair.
Ryan believes he is only one of two Irish fighters to have ever suffered such a catastrophic injury.
“It’s happened to a couple of people, including myself. There’s a guy, Ian Coughlan, he’s still in a wheelchair after an accident. It’s so strange that’s there’s two Irish guys and it never really happens to MMA people. It very rarely happens,” he says.
Ryan in hospital
The 5ft7ins flyweight vividly recalls the accident which happened on a Thursday in January last year at the Fight Ireland gym in Belfast, to which he had been travelling three or four times a week in a bid to achieve his dream to become a world champion.
“We were just in a wrestling position and one of my arms got trapped, and the guy suplexed me on the side that my arm was trapped on. It instantly snapped my neck and paralysed me,” he recalls.
“I had sparred with him loads of time, good lad, great guy, just a freak training accident.
“I think a couple of the guys thought my shoulder was dislocated and I could barely speak at the time, because the accident was so high up it was shutting down my diaphragm. Thank God I’m still alive to tell the tale.”
Ryan’s family hails from the Sheriff Street area of north inner city Dublin, and he was brought up in nearby Summerhill.
“I would have come from a large family. There were eight of us in total, three brothers and two sisters. Two of my sisters have passed away,” he explains. “My dad died when I was aged two months, from a drug overdose. Our Ma brought us up, and she has always been there for us.”
Ryan can remember his first fight when he was around four or five, when three lads ganged up in the playground and beat him up. In the days that followed he targeted all three individually, and took out revenge by beating them up.
He became streetwise growing up.
“When it’s a situation like that you need to do what you have to do. I’m thankful for it all, as there’s a saying ‘you don’t know how much violence it took to become this peaceful’.
“I don’t advise people fighting on the street or whatever, but I do advise people having some sort or martial arts training in a controlled environment. I’d be a big advocate of that.”
Ryan comes from a closeknit community, which has a few famous faces, including Hollywood actor Barry Keoghan.
“Me and Barry would have been good friends growing up. To be honest, I would have been friends with Barry but I would have been closer friends with his younger brother Eric,” he says.
“Everybody gets behind everybody here, I’d be great friends of Kellie Harrington as well.”
Kassia got her own pair of pink gloves
Ryan first heard of MMA from a school pal when he was 16 and decided to check it out.
“Most people thought it was like WWE wrestling and nobody around here really knew what it was. I was doing it before it was mainstream,” he says.
“My coach at the time was Owen Roddy, and he would bring me from his gym to SBG to spar with Conor McGregor, Paddy Houlihan, Aisling Daly, Philip Mulpeter, Chris Fields, all the more old-school generation. We were doing it before it was cool and mainstream.”
Having regularly sparred with McGregor back in the day, he says: “I kind of never looked at Conor like a superstar. Obviously no one thought he was going to have the magnitude that he does now. He was just a regular guy and even when I still see him I treat him like that, because I’m not really into the whole celebrity thing.”
Ryan worked as a barber while pursuing his MMA dream, and became a father to his beautiful daughter Kassia (4).
A GoFundMe campaign was set up after his accident, with backing from McGregor and other fighters, to help Ryan on his road to recovery.
“I went to Columbia first for stem cells for a week. Stem cells are very beneficial for injuries, and I was willing to do anything in my power to get a better recovery. I had to use a wheelchair at the time; it was very difficult to navigate,” he recalls.
“The general consensus was that I was never going to walk again because it was so extreme. I know people since I’ve been involved in the [same] accident who can’t move their arms after neck breaks.
“There’s one thing being told you’ll never walk again, but there’s also a different thing being told you’ll never feed yourself again, that’s way more worrying than not walking again.”
Ryan in hospital
Ryan then spent three months at a rehabilitation centre in Texas, and returned three more times to Columbia for more stem cell treatment.
His attempts at taking his first steps were torturous.
“I couldn’t believe that this had been something that I had done my whole life and I had some of the toughest training sessions, pushed my body to the absolute limit for most of my life, and taking two steps was probably harder than anything I had ever done in my MMA career,” he says.
He is now literally back on his feet and would like to use his experience to give motivational speeches and help people with their mindset.
“I would say I’m back to normal now. I’m back training in the gym again,” he smiles.
But going back into the octagon is not on the cards.
“From a selfish point of view I’d absolutely do MMA again in a heartbeat, I’d fight again in a heartbeat, but I feel like it’s a smoker almost getting a new set of lungs and then going back smoking,” he says.
“So many people have helped me throughout this whole journey and I would just feel disrespectful and almost throwing it back in their face if I was to compete again.”
Ryan suffered a broken back, broken neck and dislocated spine
News in 90 Seconds – 24th August 2025