The partner of tragic Dundee boxer Mike Towell has claimed he asked doctors up to three times for a brain scan after he felt like his head “was going to explode” days before his final bout.
Chloe Ross, 24, told how “Iron Mike” attended hospital after complaining of crippling headaches during a sparring session on September 11.
She said he was rolling on the floor of a waiting room in pain, but was later advised he was suffering from migraines and told to see a GP, who she said agreed with the diagnosis the following day.
Chloe, who was Mike’s partner for nine years, said that he accepted it must be migraines and put the headaches down to pre-fight stress.
But she revealed 25-year-old Mike refused to spar again before his British title eliminator with Welsh welterweight Dale Evans in Glasgow on September 29.
Mike was knocked down twice in the fight and died in hospital the following day, suffering from bleeding to the brain.
Speaking publicly about the matter for the first time, Chloe revealed: “Michael had headaches for three weeks before. He was in sparring one day and had to be pulled out after the third round because it was so bad.
“Straight away his coaches said ‘you’re not fighting, you need to get this seen’. He was taken straight to Dundee, to Ninewells A&E, but they said it wasn’t an emergency.
“But if you put ‘boxing’ and ‘headache’ in the same sentence surely that should be enough.
“He was lying on the floor in the waiting area with his hood up, reduced to tears, saying ‘my head is going to explode, it’s really not right, I know something is wrong’. They just said he shouldn’t be there, and he needed to see his GP.
“They said it sounded like a migraine. Michael said ‘you need to scan me, I know that it’s not right’. But they said he needed to see his GP and gave him Co-codomol, and sent him on his way.
“He got a lift home and he was lying in the back of the car and didn’t speak. He went to his mum’s and lay in a dark room. Later on that night he seemed ok.
“But he was like, ‘how is it not an emergency? I’ve just been hit in the head and I’ve never experienced a headache like this before’.
“He’d been fighting since he was 15. He’s not normally a complainer so it must have been bad for him to go to A&E about it. He said to me he felt like his head was going to explode, like it was going to burst open.”
Chloe said Mike went to the GP with his mother Tracey the next day.
She said the GP agreed it “did sound like migraines” and took a blood test but they have not yet seen the results.
She added: “They gave him aspirin, which I’ve heard could actually make bleeding on the brain worse, but refused to scan him and sent him away.”
Chloe said Mike, with whom she has two-year-old son Rocco, continued to suffer from headaches before the fight but trusted medical opinion and accepted they were caused by stress.
He refused to spar, however, and insisted that adrenaline would get him through the fight with Evans at the Radisson Blu Hotel if they returned on the night.
Chloe, who has lodged a complaint with the NHS, said: “He said the aspirin helped a little bit, but he still woke every single morning with a headache.
“From the 11th of September when he went to the hospital he never sparred again after that.
“He said, ‘I’m not away to have a headache — if it’s on the night I’ll just fight through it’.
“He genuinely believed he was having migraines — that’s what the doctor told him so why wouldn’t you believe your doctor?
“It was so severe, when he was getting hit it was hurting that much he said ‘I can’t spar up until the fight now’.
“He thought that on the night, if he got a headache, the adrenaline would take over. Obviously he didn’t realise how bad it was.”
She added: “He did have the symptoms of a migraine, but they should have checked him. They shouldn’t just have said ‘you have the symptoms so that must be what you have. He should have got scanned but they never.
“He went and got massages. He had three massages, and acupuncture. He was also sleeping funny, taking a pillow away then the next night sleeping with no pillows, the next night with two.
“He was sick one night. He woke up and ran to the toilet and was being sick. He had a sore neck and I was Googling it, as you do. To be fair, it was all the symptoms of a migraine.”
Chloe revealed Mike was also dehydrated after having to rapidly lose weight ahead of the official weigh-in for the bout.
She said: “He made the weight on his own scales but he was frustrated because on their scales he was two and a half pounds over and he was made to lose it within two hours.
“Check weigh-in was at 3pm and he had to lose it by 5pm. He was in the sauna, jogging with a sweat suit on. He did lose the weight but he said he was shaky. He would have been, because he hadn’t eaten.”
Chloe said she was hurt by suggestions that Mike had not told anyone about his headaches.She was also stung by claims he might have only taken part in the fight for a bumper payday — he stood to make only a small four figure sum from taking on Evans.
Mike was undefeated in 12 contests prior to facing the Welshman and uncharacteristic pre-fight nerves were put down to the magnitude of the event, which was also Mike’s first time fighting live on television.
Chloe said: “People said ‘it’s the boxer’s fault’ because he never told anyone, and that’s what’s got to me the most.
“He did tell people and he did go to the doctor’s. He didn’t keep his headaches away from anyone. I heard him on the phone having conversations and they’ve said ‘how’s your headaches today?’
“He asked Ninewells two or three times ‘you need to scan me’, and they refused and said wasn’t an emergency.. just a headache’.
“A lot of people have said he was only interested in the pay cheque but he would have fought for free. It was nothing to do with money.
“He wasn’t on that much anyway — we’re talking the low end of four figures, not a life-changing sum and certainly not something worth risking your life for.
“People were saying on the TV he would have got £10,000 for that but it was nothing close.
“Don’t get me wrong, he had the money spent in his head — a holiday to Mexico was top of the list — but he still worked as a scaffolder. He wasn’t making enough to box full-time.
“He wanted to be a boxer to win championships.”
Mike was knocked down in the first round of the fight, but recovered to continue. Referee Victor Loughlin stopped the fight in the fifth round shortly after Towell was knocked down a second time.
He received treatment in the ring and was given oxygen before being taken to an ambulance on a stretcher. He was later transferred to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital where it was discovered he had serious bleeding to the brain.
Chloe said: “I used to love going to his fights. It was always a great night. People used to ask me ‘do you not get scared?’ but I’d never seen him get hurt.. until that night. I never had to get scared.
“When it happened, the stewards said ‘it’s just procedure, he’s just getting oxygen.. it’s a suspected broken jaw’, which it wasn’t, he never had any fractures.
“I just saw it getting worse. I wasn’t allowed in the ring, but I didn’t realise how serious it was. I wasn’t allowed in the ambulance either so I took a taxi with his mum and friends.
“At the hospital I was told almost straight away he wasn’t going to make it.
“After an hour and a half they said they could tell how severe it was and we should prepare for the worst. I can’t describe how that felt. I still thought there was hope.”
She added: “I still don’t think it’s hit us yet. When I read ‘RIP Iron Mike’, I just look at it like ‘has that actually happened?’ It doesn’t seem real.
“It hit me a bit when I had to pick his coffin. We’d been together nine years in January, since we were kids.
“He never had his first fight until he was 16 so I’ve been there since the start.
“Boxing was good for him because it stopped him drinking and going out every weekend. He’d go training instead. He was dedicated to the sport.
“I’ve read a lot that boxers know the risks, but I don’t think any boxer thinks he’s going to die.
“They think you might break your ribs or your jaw, a broken nose, but not that.”
Mike’s family has asked NHS Tayside bosses explain why he didn’t receive a brain scan. An NHS Tayside spokeswoman said: “We have received a complaint and we are in direct contact with the family.”
