The parents of NRL player Alex McKinnon have spoken for the first time about the emotional moment they realised their son had been paralysed from the chest down.
In their most raw comments to date, Scott and Kate McKinnon describe their devastation on a "winter's night, that was just silent, just cold".
"I just stood and looked at the telly and said, 'Get up, Alex, please get up sweetheart'," Kate McKinnon said.
Their gut-wrenching account will air on Channel Nine's 60 Minutes on Sunday night, with the program also describing how the 23-year-old "wanted to die" after the tackle last May, involving the Melbourne Storm's Jordan McLean, that damaged his spine.
The moment when, in McKinnon's words, "everything just stopped".
McKinnon can't cough or sneeze since his head hit the ground in that tackle. He asks himself, often, "Why didn't you just let go of the ball and put your hand down?"
Reporter Liz Hayes interviewed McKinnon before the release of his autobiography, Unbroken. She told Fairfax Media the former Knight is devoted to staying healthy and forging a life with fiancee Teigan Power.
"He's got great hope that science and technology will one day hold the key to him getting movement back," Hayes said.
"He's also a realist. He's in a place where he understands that might not happen."
The family's lives have been condensed to tiny triumphs and devastations. McKinnon has relearnt to pick up a spoon and lift it to his mouth, but can no longer cook. He was always house-proud. It feels like a loss. He can stand for short periods, with help, and dreams of walking Teigan – "the woman who saved his life" – down the aisle.
"Alex hates that people are awkward and uncomfortable around him now," Hayes said.
"But he understands."
The public goodwill around his recovery culminated in last year's NRL Rise For Alex round, during which the Knights honoured McKinnon before playing the Dragons in front of a tearful crowd at Hunter Stadium.
There were fund-raisers in McKinnon's home town of Aberdeen. The Wiggles made a tribute song. More than $1 million was raised for the injured player, whose living costs will exceed $200,000 a year, and the NRL offered him a "job for life".
McKinnon briefly worked at the Knights in a football and corporate capacity, before taking a role as an NRL ambassador and pursuing a business degree. He and Power still live in Newcastle.
A lawsuit that McKinnon is considering against the NRL and Melbourne Storm, estimated by legal experts as a potential $10 million action, has the support of Wayne Bennett.
"He says that in 30 years' time, when no one's heard of Alex McKinnon, he's got to know that he'll still have a life," Hayes said, referring to the former Knights and now Broncos coach.
"I think financial security is what [McKinnon] would hope to achieve. He's not wanting Learjets. He's just wanting to survive."
Bennett is "very much a part of Alex's inner sanctum" and has vowed to wear his Rise For Alex wristband until "the day that we realise he won't walk again or he will walk".
