Albion centre-half Shane Duffy has urged people to give blood after his life was saved by donated blood.

Ireland defender Duffy suffered a freak injury during a 2010 training match.

His liver was damaged and left him requiring emergency surgery with six to seven units of blood necessary to cover the blood loss.

Speaking to offtheball.com, Duffy said the impact of those events have taught him about the importance of donating blood.

He said: “It’s huge and every chance I do get to give blood back now I do it as well because if it weren’t for someone else’s blood, whoever donates, I wouldn’t be here.

“It’s massive and you have to encourage it.

“I encourage it to my family now just purely because of what happened really and you need something like that or someone close to you to realise how important it is it can save someone’s life.”

Duffy also spoke about his memories of the incidents. He said: “From the moment, it impacted and I landed on the grounded, I just felt winded.”

But little did he realise how serious the injury actually was.

He said: “I kept gasping for air and I can’t really remember anything after then,”

“Last thing I probably remember is sitting up and then the doctors saying I’d be alright. I just woke up in the hospital and then that was it. It’s quite surreal sometimes to hear it back.”

Duffy also added that he feels very “lucky” to have come through that horrendous experience and praised the medical staff.

He said: “If it wasn’t for them, or if we were away in a different country maybe where we didn’t have the facilities or the hospitals to do the procedure, it could have been so different.”

“They realised straight away what was wrong. There was no blood on me, it was all internal.

“So for them to realise so quickly that it’s internal... if you see a horror leg break, you know (what it is).”