Falcarragh photographer James O’Donnell has opened up about a near-death experience that almost cost him his hand.
The popular snapper had just settled in for the evening along with his beloved border collie Frida, on the night of Wednesday the 3rd of June.
After lighting the open fire in his living room, he decided to throw in a stack of papers next to the fireplace in to help it along.
Without realising, he had also mistakenly placed a small plastic bottle in that pile – a small error that almost had catastrophic consequences.
Moments later as he was adjusting a piece of paper that was about to fall off the fire, his fireplace exploded, sending hot coals scattering across his living room.
One of those flying coals grazed his left hand, but did enough damage that he required five inches of stitches and surgery to repair the damage.
“The bottle that fell into the fire – if that angle had come out slightly different and hit me in the neck, I would have been dead and the house would have went up in flames,” James said.
“The fire just exploded in the darkness. I’m a fight person rather than a flight person, so I ran to put water on the wound to clean it, wrapped it up and helped to get Frida away.”
Luckily, his famous dog had escaped the ordeal without any physical injury.
James on the other hand, quite literally, wasn’t so lucky.
His first instinct was to call his friends who lived nearby for help, and he credits them for their assistance on the night.
“Joseph and his wife Siobhan were here within 10 minutes. Joseph cleared the hot coals off the carpet and Siobhan called 999. The adrenaline left my body once I knew I had help.”
“I heard the operator on the end of the 999 call and the next thing I was losing consciousness. I just kept talking to myself to try and keep myself awake, and I was drunk-sounding as I was slurring my voice.”
While he did regain his consciousness when the ambulance crew arrived from Dungloe, he still had a big journey on his hands that evening.
With his friend Brenda on the scene to take care of a terrified Frida, James was on his way to Letterkenny University Hospital within 30 minutes of the alarm being raised.
He was immediately recommended to see a specialist at University Hospital Galway, and remarkably his sister Catherine joined him in the middle of the night to drive him there.
“My sister had to get out of bed at 4am to get me down to Galway for half past seven that same morning so that the consultants there could see me, otherwise I could have gotten pushed back to the following day. Catherine, she was incredible with that.”
The full extent of his injuries was astonishing, with his skin and flesh being removed to the point where he could see the tendons and bones of his hand.
However remarkably, despite suffering some minor nerve damage, after two months things are mostly back to normal for the famous snapper.
A recent image of James’ hand, just two months on from his injury.
Through a process called epithelization, the large gap in his hand was closed – with new skin then forming over the previously open area.
“There was a half-inch gap in the wound where I had no skin. I was referred to the plastic surgeons in at the Merlin Park University Hospital and they did an incredible job.”
“There was talk of skin grafts, maybe sponges being inserted or potentially having synthetic skin – I was kinda excited about that one!”
“Eventually they decided on using epithelization, so they surgically pulled the remaining skin on my hand closer together and allowed new skin to grow on the area of the wound.”
“I was awake through the whole thing, and I couldn’t feel any pain. Have to give a big shoutout to the surgeons who all did a pretty amazing job.”
Even though his mobility in his left hand had been reduced to roughly 30 percent of what it had been pre-accident, thanks to physiotherapy and the work of the doctors and nurses who guided him back to health, James now has 100 percent use of his left hand once again – even if there is just a bit of numbness.
“The stitches are all out and I’m healing now. Initially after the surgery I could only move my hand about 30 percent of what I could do before, but I’m back to about 100 percent now.”
“There is just some stiffness around the wound and some nerve damage, but I keep calling it a papercut!”
“I could actually see the tendons in my hand and the bone structure, but amazingly the way it cut through my hand it only damaged nerves. So the wound area when I touch it is numb. The recovery from it is pretty spectacular I’d say.”
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After his surgery, he was given physio treatments to do at home, and relied on the nurses at the Falcarragh Medical Centre to take care of dressing his wounds.
“I’m very grateful to everyone who helped me, from the Dungloe ambulance crew to people in Letterkenny, in Galway and in Falcarragh. They were all very good to me.”
James attributes the cause of the accident in part due to tiredness, the traumatic event happening less than a week after the passing of his father.
But he also says it was in part just a “freak accident.”
“If there ever was a freak accident, that was it. I have no idea how the bottle got into the paper bin,” he said.
“I hope that by telling my own story, other people who have had similar accidents can be okay telling their stories without any shame.”
Just six months prior to the accident, he had also lost his beloved dog Iggy, whose escapades along with James made the two world-famous across social media.
James and Iggy: James O’Donnell Photos
Both of those losses made his injury easier to bear, according to James.
“The five inches of stitches on my hand, that was a papercut compared to the death of Iggy. That was really a big problem,” he said.
“My dad was buried at the end of May, and it was sad that he had passed away but I was almost accepting of it as he was 93 and it was a short illness. Five days later this thing happened.”
The incident also left its scars on Frida, who had escaped injury but had her own emotional reactions following the event.
“I was being attended to in the ambulance, and poor Frida ran straight through the door and straight into it.”
While Frida couldn’t accompany James on his medical journey, she was still feeling the burden of not being able to rely on James the same way.
Frida visiting the iconic Mont Saint-Michel landmark. Image credit James O’Donnell.
“After the explosion, the debris and my shouts would have terrified her. You can imagine basically a bomb like that going off, and then me being taken away- that was very traumatic for her.”
“Every time I left the house afterwards for weeks, I could hear her howling even if I was going out to the shops.”
“Luckily that’s all good now, and it’s calmed down.”
Sooner than expected, James’ focus is now on his next international adventure.
He is planning to set sail for the southwest of France and the north of Spain for five weeks across October in November, to mark Iggy’s first anniversary.
With accomodation being kindly offered in the village of Najac in the Aveyron region of France by his friend Mary and her husband Jean Marc, Brittany Ferries will again be sponsoring his transport over.
James is also looking to get his VW van retrofitted and brought up to date for a special road-trip, including a walk of parts of the Camino along with Frida.
After my accident, I tried to push and find something positive, so I’m going back to France for Iggy’s anniversary,” he says.
“It was a combination of that, and my dad’s anniversary, to make it an epic roadtrip.”
James also says he’s engaged in some “family planning” – but won’t be making any additions to join Frida for a while just yet.
“My plan now is to hold off on getting another pup so I can bond more with Frida, and have what I had with Iggy for most of her life,” he says,
“I want to recouperate a bit as well – I see it as family planning!”
“You have to make sure everything is set up at home, you have to make sure that you will be good for that dog and that the dog can be good for you.”
“As much as I would want three or four dogs around me, I’m waiting at least a year to make sure everything is good around me first.”