Mark Bickley: Footy legend reveals terrifying ordeal after his badly hurt 12-year-old son phoned and simply said: ‘Help me, help me, help me!’

Adelaide Crows legend Mark Bickley has opened up on the terrifying phone call he received from his 12-year-old son that left his family fearing the worst.

Bickley and his wife Tory are drawing attention to the impacts of concussion in children after their son, Xavier, went over the handlebars of his bike and suffered serious injuries while on holiday in Aldinga, just south of Adelaide. 

Immediately after his fall on the sand hills, Xavier phoned his parents, saying only: ‘Help me, help me, help me!’

‘He didn’t know what had happened,’ Tory said.

When Bickley found him, a confused Xavier was trying to carry his bike over a fence.

He had suffered injuries to his shoulder and face, and also broke his left arm while showing clear signs of concussion.

‘He kept on asking ‘did I fall off my bike?” Tory said. He was also ‘going a little bit in and out of consciousness’ in the ambulance trip to Flinders Medical Centre. 

Xavier spent a traumatic three days in hospital flanked by his family. 

Xavier, 12, suffered serious injuries in a bike accident – with doctors discussing the possibility of putting him in an induced coma at one stage

Bickley and his wife Tory (pictured with Xavier) are warning other parents about the effects of concussion after they were left worried they’d lost the son they knew after his head knock

‘He thought everyone was trying to hurt him because any touch was pain,’ Tory said.

‘It was pretty scary for us.

‘We thought we’d lost the Xavier we knew.’

The brain injury rehabilitation service at Adelaide’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital has had 121 referrals for concussion so far this year, compared to 178 for the entirety of last year. 

Sixty per cent of this year’s patients were boys, and over a third of injuries related to sports.

The incident with Xavier was a vivid reminder for Bickley, who suffered his own head injuries during his 325-game footy career. 

‘I’d received a head knock and wasn’t sure what had happened but after sitting down for 10 or 15 minutes started to feel normal again … but he [Xavier] seemed to go the other way,’ he said.

Bickley detailed how his son’s traumatic experience differed from his reaction when he suffered head knocks during his 325-game footy career 

‘We were just able to see that he wasn’t himself.

‘At one stage there was talk that he may have needed to be put into an induced coma.’

Xavier missed his first two weeks of Year 7 schooling after experiencing difficulties with concentration, and he also couldn’t be exposed to TVs or laptops due to sensitivity to light. 

He was sidelined from footy for three months and must now wear a helmet when he plays. 

‘Many of us get concussed and we sort of said, ‘well, we turned out okay’ but clearly that’s not the case,’ Bickley added. 

‘We have to change the way we think about concussion.’