A FORMER LIMERICK senior hurler has told the High Court that injuries he sustained when he went to the rescue of a co-worker who caught his arm inside machinery at a Johnson & Johnson plant have left him feeling “emasculated and mentally destroyed”.

Mark Keane, who is in the second day of giving evidence to his personal injuries claim, told the court that he was “not the man he was, nor the one he hoped to become” because of the injuries and felt “let down” by the famed multinational bluechip company.

An accomplished hurler, Mr Keane won three consecutive All-Irelands with Limerick under 21s between 2000 and 2002 and played senior from 2000 to 2006.

Mr Keane has taken his case against Johnson & Johnson Vision care (Ireland) over the incident that occurred in September 2018 at their plant in the National Technological Park, Plassey, Count Limerick.

The 43-year-old is alleging Johnson & Johnson were negligent and breached their duty of care towards him on September 10, 2018, while he was working as a technician making contact lenses. Mr Keane alleges the company failed to provide him with a safe place of work and a safe system of work and is seeking damages.

At the High Court today, Mr Keane says he suffered a “huge deformity” to his hand during the incident. He said he has not worked since and still suffers pain in his right little finger that runs up his arm to his neck and back down.

Mr Keane has told the court he was on the factory floor when a colleague caught their hand in a machine on the line next to him and started “roaring” in pain. Mr Keane said he ran to help his colleague but because the man could not free his arm, his body formed a barrier between the plaintiff and a release lever which could have freed the arm.

The plaintiff has told Mr Justice Paul Coffey that he tried to reach into the machine but got his own hand caught on some internal gridding or railing and the right hand of his little finger was bent backwards.

He then took the weight of the lid, top and plate of the machine and managed to hold it ajar for 30-60 seconds until co-workers arrived with a crowbar and freed the co-worker.

Mr Keane’s lawyers, HOMS Assist, submit that this incident caused the plaintiff to suffer sustained, continuous and severe personal injury, as well as loss, damage, inconvenience and expense.

At the High Court today, Mr Keane, a recovering alcoholic of many years, told his barrister, Andrew James Walker SC, that he was now on social welfare due to the incident, could not afford counselling any more and that he suffered with his mental health.

Mr Keane outlined to his barrister various surgeries, physiotherapies, consultations, medical treatments, scans and injections he has undergone in the intervening years but says he is still left in pain.

The plaintiff said that the company had stopped paying him in December 2022 and that he could not get another job with them or elsewhere, despite his efforts, and is now on invalidity pension.

Mr Keane said he was “demoralised, hurt, angry, made feel worthless… it’s not just about me, it’s about what they’ve done to my family”.

“When I was an able-bodied person I loved it, I loved working there, loved what they had given me and what I could provide. I could put my daughters through college, there was something in the fridge and I could pay my bills,” he said.

Mr Keane said his current insecurity is “not nice, because I came from a place where I was in a hole in the ground, to better myself. I was very, very happy and secure in myself”.

He said that “in thirty seconds my whole life, my kids’ and wife’s life was turned upside down and then to be treated like a pariah because you saved a person is not nice”.

“I felt emasculated, mentally destroyed, and not the man I was. I feel let down and that I had let people down,” Mr Keane told the court.

The plaintiff said he was a recovering alcoholic and that while he did get some pain injections, he did not want to take strong oral medication and used paracetamol. He said his priority was staying sober in order to protect himself but he told the court that he still struggled.

He said there were “horror stories” he knew of about people orally taking powerful medication and becoming addicted to it.

Mr Keane said he was “lucky” to be off alcohol for years but some days were a “massive struggle”.

“If you add in the pain, I’m only two feet away from being back in a hole,” he said.

The case continues at the High Court next week.