Birmingham City keeper Neil Etheridge knocked out cold in sickening collision

Birmingham City goalkeeper Neil Etheridge had to be taken off on a stretcher during his side's match with Nottingham Forest after a sickening collision.

The City stopper raced out of his goal to deal with the onrushing Djed Spence, who was looking to latch onto the ball as it approached the Birmingham area. But the pair collided with Etheridge appearing to take a heavy knock to the head and seemingly being knocked out cold.

Birmingham's medical team were immediately called onto the field to treat the 32-year-old. After a lengthy stoppage he was stretchered off and replaced by Connal Trueman.

Etheridge was applauded by all four sides at the City Ground. The incident came just after the hour mark, with Forest leading 1-0 thanks to Keinan Davis' good finish from a tight angle after just five minutes. Scott McKenna added a late goal to seal a 2-0 win for the hosts.

Birmingham boss Lee Bowyer confirmed after the game that Etheridge had been taken to hospital with concussion and that he was in a stable condition.

Fans on social media were quick to send their well wishes to the stricken 'keeper. One wrote: "Wishing Etheridge all the best from Nottingham. Hoping its not too serious." Another put: "Didn't look good for Neil Etheridge, hope he isn't seriously injured. God speed." Another said: "Best wishes and a speedy recovery to Neil Etheridge."

Etheridge was making his 19th appearance of the season following a tough time off-the-field. Last year he spoke of his struggles with Covid-19, which ended with him in intensive care.

He contracted coronavirus at the club's pre-season training camp in Scotland and returned home early and symptomless. But over the next few days his symptoms would worsen from flu-like to breathlessness. He was then hospitalised before his health deteriorated.

He said: "On the Monday night I went to sleep and all of a sudden I'm just hearing alarm bells and people running up to me and all of a sudden I'm being rushed to the intensive care unit and I don't really know what's going on. I'm drugged up, I'm half asleep, needles are being put into me, more oxygen is being chucked into me, I'm not coming around at all.

"Probably 10 to 12 hours later I'm asking questions about what's going on, 'why am I here'? And they said, 'right now you're on 80 per cent oxygen and basically the machine is breathing for you at this stage'. So that obviously scared me. Any sort of movement I did, going on my side, going on my front, I was hyperventilating, I couldn't breathe - really strange times. Anything that you'd expect to be normal I couldn't [do], even sitting up in bed I was hyperventilating and couldn't breathe properly.

"Seeing people around you in a similar state and in worse states and it got to a stage - with 80 per cent oxygen - and I couldn't breathe for myself. The doctors there were very honest with me but they said, 'we don't want to scare you, but the next day you need to sleep with a tube down your throat' and that really hit home. It was extremely scary."