The family of a Fife man critically injured in a fight night brawl are holding a vigil by his bedside.
Dougie Fernie from Kirkcaldy is being treated in the high dependency unit at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital after being caught up in a disturbance following a kickboxing bout at Club One in Forfar on Saturday.
Speaking from the hospital on Tuesday, mother Kate Fernie said: ”He’s sleeping most of the time but we do speak to him and he knows that we’re there.”
Mr Fernie (24) was initially taken to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee and was released after having his head stapled. However, he took ill early on Monday and was admitted to Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline.
He was later transferred to the Western General, where he is being treated for swelling.
Relatives are hopeful he will make a full recovery, but believe medical staff could have done more to investigate the extent of his injury in the first place.
Ms Fernie said: ”He could be in the high dependency unit for a few days yet. When he was brought to Ninewells with a head injury they stapled his head up but they didn’t do a CT scan or anything that would let us see what the extent of his injury was.”
The match featured fighters from Results Fitness Gym in Forfar and a team called Urban Disturbance from Glenrothes. Trouble started after a fan reportedly slipped between the ropes and attacked a fighter.
It is understood the crowd spilled out on to North Street after tensions between fans boiled over at around 9pm.
Ms Fernie questioned some claims suggesting visiting Fife fans had started causing trouble.
She said: ”We were told there wasn’t enough security in the place for the amount of people, but we weren’t there and can only go by what we’ve been told.”
Paramedics treated another man for a cut above his eye and police handed out five fixed penalty notices.
A witness night described the scene on Saturday night as ”horrendous”.
”I have been to a lot of these bouts but never have seen any trouble on anything like this kind of scale,” he told The Courier. ”I think everything just kicked off because people had taken a bit too much to drink.”
It is understood trouble flared after a Fife fighter took just a couple of minutes to defeat his Forfar opponent.
The man said: ”The Fife fans were all trying to get to their man to congratulate him and then it just kicked off. It is hard to pinpoint exactly what started the brawl but there were a good few people involved and it was pretty horrendous.
”From what I saw it would not be very fair to apportion blame to one side or another to be totally honest it just looked like a 50-50 thing.”
The onlooker said the people involved appeared to have ”nothing to do” with either the Results Fitness Gym or Urban Disturbance.
He said: ”They were just rival supporters from the two places.”
The witness added: ”I suppose excitement was running high but I think the main problem was caused by a combination of drink and one set of people celebrating while another was extremely disappointed.”
It is thought up to 20 people were part of the brawl others became involved as they tried to restore calm. Police then escorted a minibus of visiting fans from the venue.
An NHS Tayside spokeswoman said, ”We are not able to comment on individual cases due to patient confidentiality. All patients are advised that if their symptoms deteriorate, or they suffer any loss of consciousness, vomiting etc, to return to the department.”
Photo by David Cheskin/PA Archive