Cuthbert: Loss of feeling was a scary experience

The 29-year-old was taken straight to Luton & Dunstable Hospital after receiving over eight minutes of treatment on the pitch, before thankfully being discharged later that evening.

When asked about the incident, Cuthbert said: “It’s the first time I’ve ever had that, I’ve had plenty of head knocks as you can tell from my nose, had concussion, but never had that numbness feeling, so it certainly was scary.

“I just clashed with their striker on the half way line, lost feeling in my left arm, thought ‘that doesn’t seem normal’.

“Then for the goal, I went to head the ball, lost feeling in my neck and then as I went to block it, lost all kind of feeling down my left hand side and I was just lying there expecting it to come back and it wouldn’t come back.

“So fair play to the paramedics, the doc who came running on, Si (Simon Parsell), the physio as well, they took great care of me, managed to get off to Luton & Dunstable hospital and thankfully got all clear with all the scans.

“It was just a case of a trapped nerve, or a spasm of a nerve, and it gave me that kind of pins and needles numb feeling down the side of my body, but I’m thankful everything’s all right.

“I don’t know if it’s a freak injury or not, I’d like to think it is.

“I just got hit in the wrong place and hit my nerves, it was a bit of a scary moment, but I’m here now, so thankfully everything went okay.”

Cuthbert was quick to praise the Hatters’ medical team, plus the hospital staff who attended to him as well, continuing: “I sent a message to Luton & Dunstable hospital, the paramedics and nurses and doctors were different class as they took really good care of me, and I could just get on with playing and training.

“I was in a stretcher and neck brace for five hours, staring at the ceiling and had Dan the youth team physio to keep me company.

“They gave me some morphine and some other kind of drugs to settle it and it finally eased off.

“I was still in my kit, had my GPS on as well to keep track of me, so sure that was going all kind of angles for Jared’s (Roberts-Smith) computer on the Monday.”

Although missing Tuesday night’s trip to Hartlepool, Cuthbert was straight back into the team for the weekend’s 1-1 draw with Cheltenham and couldn’t have had a much harder test against a direct Robins outfit.

He said: “I knew it was going to be like that, I’ve trained Thursday, Friday and Joaquin (Gomez) has pulled me aside and we’ve done a bit of extra heading and defending the box, because we knew that’s the way they play, so I was well prepared for it.”

Goalscorer Danny Hylton was delighted to the see the skipper back for the weekend too, adding: “It’s always nice to have Scotty back.

“He’s a big, powerful centre half who loves to head the ball, I certainly don’t like playing against him in training.

“It’s good news that it wasn’t too bad because it did look quite bad last week, didn’t it? Fortunately it was better than what it looked like.”