TV star Tony Squires reveals the shocking way he almost died of a head injury in his sleep

After more than three decades of covering professional sport, Australian media personality and broadcaster Tony Squires has seen some big hits – but one of the most brutal was the one he inflicted on himself.

The host of The Back Page and Cricket Legends spoke with Hughesy, Ed and Erin today on 2DayFM about a recent incident where he tried to tackle furniture in his sleep, coming off second best.

Host Dave Hughes introduced the broadcaster by saying Squires had nearly died one night recently.

‘I had this wonderful thing called REM Sleep Disorder, Hughesy,’ Squires told the panel on Friday.

RBD is a sleep disorder where individuals physically act out their dreams during the REM stage of sleep, as opposed to being relatively still like typical sleepers. This can pose a danger to both themselves and whoever’s in bed with them. 

The television veteran has been working in the sport media industry since the early 1990s and is the current host of The Back Page 

‘When most people get into REM sleep they can’t move their muscles while they have dreams and they don’t act them out,’ Squires continued.

‘I get to act them out.

‘The one the other night was particularly good, I was actually staying at my mum’s place.

‘In my dream, I was playing rugby league … Phil Gould was the coach and we were getting flogged.

‘After halftime he came out and I was put at fullback. In my dream I remember looking down and seeing that I was wearing board shorts and a T-shirt and thinking that was odd.

‘Almost immediately after we started the second half somebody broke through and I thought, ‘I am really going to hit this guy?’.

‘So I lined him up, I started to run and I dived straight into him.

‘What I was actually diving straight into was the corner table next to the bed in the spare room at my mum’s house.’

Squires says he now has to sleep alone because his RBD means he has the potential to harm his partner in bed, as well as himself 

Squires shared an image of the injury with the Hughest, Ed & Erin team that showed how much damage he did to his ear

Squires has shared the gruesome image of his injuries, including a deep gash across one of his ears. 

‘It was like I had been in a knife fight,’ he said.

‘Ears bleed profusely – everywhere on the scalp does – and the weird thing was I knew I was not on a football field. I knew it had been a dream.’

‘I think it is happening more and more as the years go on and there are fewer people that can stay in the bed with me.’