I'm organising a football match for the incredible charity which helped my daughter through hospital ordeal

It happened when my daughter Orla was in P1 at her Edinburgh primary school, three years ago this month in May, 2022. I still remember the day vividly.

She was at her after-school club, playing on the monkey bars when she came off and landed right on her left arm, smashed her wrist and broke and dislocated her elbow. She also snapped the bone down to her wrist.

It was a very bad one. I got there two minutes after it happened, as I was there to pick her up. I still remember that the scene which greeted me was just so horrible. You could see things weren’t right. It’s hard just thinking about it now. Her bone was sticking out but it hadn’t quite pierced the skin.

I kept thinking at the time, ‘if I had just got there two minutes earlier this wouldn’t have happened’. I felt terrible.

I took Orla to hospital in the car and I just remember it felt like the longest journey of my life, every little bump on the road caused her more pain.

They took her in at the hospital right away because her arm was so bad. No waiting at all, straight in at A&E. They had to cut her cardigan and t-shirt off to get into the injury, and she was operated on the next day.

Little Orla in hospital in 2022 after her playground fall. | Paul McPherson

Then, on the day she was due to leave hospital after being there for three days, the specialist noticed that Orla had the serious condition ‘compartment syndrome’. All the muscles in her arms were starting to swell up. It’s not a common condition, they said it was their first time seeing it in a good few years. We were just lucky a nurse had picked up on it.

If they hadn’t seen it and it got worse Orla could have lost half her arm. We were so lucky. We are just so thankful that everyone that needed to be there to fix the problem was luckily there and she was rushed in for emergency surgery right away.

It’s unbelievable that they spotted something they don’t deal with very often as it’s not common, it was very lucky for us as a family. They had to cut Orla’s arm open from her wrist to her elbow to let the muscles relax and go back to normal.

She had a third operation later to install a device to help reduce the moisture and the swelling, followed by a fourth operation - a skin graft from her thigh to her wrist - and she was in the hospital for three weeks all in, we were so glad to get her home. She was in a wheelchair for for a couple of weeks because of the operations.

She was then back for another operation in October last year, mostly for plastic surgery to make her arm look more like it used to. She will have more plastic surgery later this year.

So we are quite familiar with the staff there at the Edinburgh Children's Hospital now. Some of them are incredible. Every time we were in the hospital we could see how amazing the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity is.

Sometimes they have a magician on the ward or just somebody funny to cheer up the kids in hospital. They would come to Orla’s bed and just bring her stuff to make her happy, it just made her scary time in there bearable and we could see she was in safe hands.

Another photo of Orla in hospital and then after treatment walking with her younger sister, with her injured arm still bandaged. | Paul McPherson

They have got lots of things for the kids to do in the hub at the hospital, thanks to the charity. There’s a Playstation 5 and and so many toys, board games, various arts and crafts, virtual reality and sensory play to name a few. Even now when we still visit the hospital for a check-up Orla loves going to the hub and always looks forward to it.

I witnessed this first hand on how they make the kids feel special in horrendous circumstances. In the hub it really made Orla forget where she was, this was due to how amazing the staff are. Orla has been so brave during this whole ordeal for her.

It’s a safe space that she loves, and the staff couldn’t be any better for the kids. It makes the ‘scary’ trips to the hospital for such a young girl much more bearable and even enjoyable.

As the charity has done so much for Orla over the past three years, I wanted to do something to give back, to say thanks. So I decided to organise a charity football match.

Nearly 30 years ago I was part of a football team called the Sunday Samba Superstars. The team disbanded, but when one of the players’ mum was diagnosed with cancer we got the team back as the MacMillan Samba to raise money, and we ended up going on for another three or four seasons.

We changed the name to the Samba Foundation and now play matches for charity at local football stadiums, playing at Falkirk’s, Raith Rovers’ and Spartans’ grounds among others, including Easter Road, where we will play again this time.

We wanted to do something big for the hospital charity. The Hanlon Stevenson Foundation had been helping the hospital and we were mentioned, and so it got going from there.

The Samba Foundation will now take on the Hanlon Stevenson Foundation at Easter Road Stadium on May 20, with their team managed by current Hibs captain Joe Newell, and featuring former Hibs players. I will be player-manager for the Samba Foundation.

The Samba Foundation have previously played at Easter Road, and will return later this month to raise money for the Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity. | Samba Foundation

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We are hoping to raise quite a lot of money for the Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Foundation. It’s not a game for people to come along to watch though, it will be recorded and photos taken.

We have got the Just Giving page set-up which is on £3,000 just now, and a decent chunk is still to come in. Players playing for us have to raise at least £200 each to play and we’ve had a lot of other anonymous donations by people who have seen Orla’s story.

It would just be so amazing to raise as much money as possible for such a worthwhile charity which is close to so many people’s hearts, who do so much for kids who have to go to Edinburgh Children’s Hospital for treatment, making a scary time for youngsters so much easier.

You can donate to the Samba Foundation’s Just Giving Page for the charity football match on May 20 in aid of the Edinburgh’s Children’s Hospital Charity.