Brown was a special guest at the annual Devine Legends Luncheon - one of Melbourne’s premier corporate events which helps raise money for AFL and AFLPA supported charity Ladder.
The theme of the luncheon was ‘Courage Under Fire’, so it was only appropriate that the event featured one of the bravest individuals to ever grace a football field.
During an interview with event MC and Channel Seven personality Hamish McLachlan, Brown provided a graphic account of the details surrounding both his first and second facial surgeries.
“The first operation was much worse, you couldn’t even count the amount of fractures that were in my face then,” Brown said.
“The whole right side of my face had pretty much collapsed. I think I had around 10 plates put in. The surgeons tell you that the force of the impact has to go somewhere, and it apparently went out the left side of my chin. It actually blew my chin off by about two centimetres.”
“But they put me back together and I went through the rehabilitation.”
“I remember the surgeon saying that he’d let me get back a little bit early, just so long as I didn’t get hit on the right side of my face. So I went out and got hit on the left hand side of my face instead,” he said.
Brown said the more recent incident against the Cats had been so forecful that it damaged his existing metal plates in his face.
“I got a big break at the end of my chin and had to get some of the plates replaced,” he said.
“The surgeons told me they had seen only one other case of a bent plate, and that was from a guy who was in a motorbike accident.”
“I was certainly hit with some reasonable force, so it’s not like I had a glass jaw. That was actually pleasing in some sense that it at least took a decent hit.”
“The plates will stay for good now. The surgeon was really happy with the way it all went. He’s probably got his wish now that I’m not playing until 2012, which would have been his ideal scenario after the first incident, but I was keen to get back to work.”
“I thought I was going pretty well. I had gotten through eight games and copped a few hits along the way and even jumped into the boxing ring a few times. My jaw was feeling really good and it was just unfortunate that I got hit in that other accident.”
Now that he’ll be sidelined for the rest of 2011, Brown is starting to looking ahead to his preparations for next season.
“I’ll be back next year with eight months recovery which will make things heal a hell of a lot better,” he said.
“It’s probably going to be the first time I haven’t had an operation in the off-season - I don’t count anything above the neck. So I should be able to do a good pre-season and get back to playing my best footy.”
“Because I haven’t played much footy in the past 18 months, Vossy has already told me that it might be a good idea for me to play a few practice games next year.”
