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TNT Sports host Darrell Currie has opened up on the illness that has left him fighting for his life over the past two years.
The 41-year-old was a regular part of BT Sport’s coverage of Scottish football and the Champions League before his life took a sudden turn for the worst in September 2022.
Currie was live on air, working on a Champions League clash between Celtic and Real Madrid alongside Michael Owen, Chris Sutton and Gordon Strachan.
The presenter then felt an intense pain in his head and it was the start of a health nightmare that has plagued him ever since.
He told The Athletic: ‘It felt like a bomb went off in my brain. Like something exploded in my head. The second it happened, I remember holding onto my chair.
‘I felt dizzy, like I was going to fall out of my seat and pass out. I managed to finish the chat and get to the break but I came off air feeling terrible.
‘Walking back to the TV trucks, it felt like the ground wasn’t there. I had no real sense of where I was.’
Currie, who was initially diagnosed with inflammation of the ear (labyrinthitis), returned to present coverage of another game the following day but revealed his producer stepped in to take him off air.
‘I was struggling to stand up and every time I was turning my head to chat to the pundits, I felt like going to faint or fall over.
‘I take a lot of pride in my work so I would never, ever not finish a programme, but that night the producer saw something was not right with me. He came into the stadium during the game and said he was taking it out of my hands: I was being taken off air. It was the biggest weight off my shoulders.’
That was the last time that Currie was able to work on live television as the pain began to spread all over his body.
Before joining BT Sport (which has now rebranded as TNT Sports), Currie worked for BBC Scotland, CNN International and ESPN.
A specialist in Germany eventually informed Currie that he believed he had early symptoms of arachnoiditis, which is a rare, progressive inflammatory condition that affects the part of the body that protects the nerves of the brain and the spinal cord.
The presenter was then left horrified as he read up on how the paralysis tends to get worse with time.
Currie said: ‘For those few months after that diagnosis, I’m not sure I wanted to be alive.
‘I would talk to my wife often about, ‘What is the point in being here?’ I couldn’t really see the light of day.
‘I would never have committed suicide, as I remember speaking to Kris Boyd about his charity and I know how that can be for your family, leaving them like that.
‘I never told anyone I was thinking of it, but I was genuinely trying to think of ways I could do it — even if that was abroad so it was something assisted.
‘The pain was horrific. My neck felt broken, my back felt broken, my whole body felt broken. I could barely hold my head up. I was questioning everything.’
