how an innocent-looking bump saw him lose three litres of blood – and how he did the ‘dumbest thing possible’ while battling the injury

• Mason Cox suffered a ruptured spleen against Port Adelaide in Round 2
• The injury was initially misdiagnosed as a broken rib by the Pies’ medical team
• Cox revealed he lost three litres of blood and had to undergo surgery 
• Mason Cox of Collingwood has revealed that he lost over three litres of blood as a result of internal injuries sustained from a seemingly innocuous knock earlier this season.

  The American hasn’t played since Collingwood’s 71-point hammering of Port Adelaide in Round 2, when the Pies’ medical team suspected he had a broken rib.

  Scan results indicated a haematoma and burst spleen, making the injury significantly more serious.

• ‘It’s literally a lacerated spleen. I had two to three litres of internal bleeding into the system, which is not ideal,’ Cox told KIIS on Tuesday.

  ‘Essentially the next day I woke up and went to the doctor and I was in hospital 30 minutes later.

• ‘I had a little operation, like a crazy operation that goes into your spleen and plugs things up and for the last two to three weeks, I’ve just been doing nothing.

  ‘I can’t get the heart rate up, can’t work out or anything like that, so I’ve just been walking around. It’s the most that I can do

• The Pies star ruckman said he felt ‘pretty sick’ after the win against Port and trained a few days afterward, as the injury had completely confounded the Pies’ medical staff.

  ‘That was the dumbest thing you could do.’ he said.

  ‘After I had the operation, I was OK for a bit but for the first four-day period, it was kind of misdiagnosed.

  ‘We thought it was a broken rib and then we looked at the scans further and the radiologist realised he missed something.

  And the 32-year-old acknowledged the severity of the injury could have had a far more serious impact on his life.

• That was internal bleeding, which is pretty crazy to think,’ he explained.

  ‘It was an interesting week, looking back on it, it was pretty serious and the fact I live alone – if something does happen and it becomes like a ruptured spleen, it would be very serious.’

  With Cox and long-term absentee Darcy Cameron both out of the Anzac Day clash against Essendon, the Pies are set to again deploy Billy Frampton as their lead ruckman.

  Collingwood are third on the ladder with a 4-1 record after beating first-placed St Kilda last week, while the Bombers are second with the same record after beating Melbourne by 27.