I'll admit, I just assumed that having assessed him on the ground, and with the proximity to the bench, the club Doctor considered that helping Nat to the bench was the safest and quickest way to proceed. I think the 20 minute stretcher thing is a red herring. If a player has been knocked out – as Nat had – then don’t they need to go into the concussion protocol anyway? That requires them to sit for 10 minutes, then have a 5 minute concussion test which they need to pass to come back on. So, at best, avoiding the stretcher would have saved a couple of minutes.
I didn’t consider that a Doctor would compromise his professional autonomy and clinical independence because he was worried Ross ‘let the cobblers do the cobbling’ Lyon would yell at him for risking that couple of minutes, but I guess I don’t assume the worst about absolutely everyone involved with the club (although full disclosure, I do tend to assume the worst about Rosich).
