As soon as Matt Endycott collided with an opposition player on the rugby field, he knew he was injured. Perhaps fortunately, he had no idea of how serious that injury was.

“I went to Canada in August last year to play in an amateur rugby tournament,” Endycott, national head of sales at nib Travel Insurance, says. “I’d played rugby as a kid and it was one of those post-COVID things, wanting to get out there and try something new.”

Earlier in the year he’d joined the Sydney Convicts rugby union club, with whom he’d travel to Ottawa to compete in the Bingham Cup.

“We were in our third game, 10 minutes into the second half, and the ball came out of the ruck,” he recalls. “I jumped on the ball and just then, another player’s knee made direct impact with my spine. Running at full force with about 20 kilograms on me, it was a pretty severe impact.

“I don’t remember heaps from when it happened but I remember the pain – it was probably 15 out of 10. When I went to stand up, my legs went out from under me. That was a very, very confronting couple of minutes.”

And so began a medical journey that would see Endycott transported to Ottawa Hospital and, five days later, flown home to Australia with a broken spine.

Claims team on call

“Having the job that I do, I often talk about emergency assistance while overseas but I never truly understood its value until then,” Endycott says.

“When you’re badly injured and desperately needing help, the next step isn’t always obvious.”

He contacted nib Travel Insurance emergency assistance. It was around 3am in Melbourne and the nurse who took the call was Karen Howden, who would see Endycott’s case through from start to finish.

“Knowing that I had to go to hospital, Karen recommended the most appropriate facility for me to have my injury looked at,” says Endycott. “It turned out I had a transverse process fracture in my L2, a hairline fracture in my L3 and a haematoma between my L2 and L3. My entire back was in severe muscular spasm. I couldn’t do anything. So that was that.”

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