Soccer-Punctured lung brought forward decision to retire says England’s White

England women’s record goalscorer Ellen White punctured her lung last year, a traumatic experience which she said ultimately played a part in her retiring from the game earlier this month. White, who scored 52 goals for England, announced her decision to retire after helping her country win their first major trophy by beating eight-times champions Germany in the final of the European Championship last month.

The 33-year-old said retirement was far from her mind last year but an acupuncture session arranged by her club Manchester City led to a punctured lung which forced her to rethink. “I had a challenging time last year — coming back from the Olympics, I basically punctured my lung. It was a lot for me to have to go through and a big reason that accelerated my wanting to retire,” White told the BBC.

“It punctured my lung which isn’t something that happens normally, obviously. It was a really traumatic time for me and something that I’m still figuring out now, still working through.” White said she had a procedure which involved re-inflating her lung and that she still suffered from “phantom pain”.

“I had to wait for the lung to basically inflate again. I had a needle put into my chest to drag all the air out then hopefully the lung would inflate again — which it has,” added White. “I went very tunnel vision. It wasn’t until a good two or three months later, it just hit me like a train, what actually happened and how traumatic it was… It was a big factor in my year and leading up to the decision of wanting to retire.”

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)