Middlesbrough's Seb Hines tells of broken jaw horror

Middlesbrough defender Seb Hines has spoken about the extent of a broken jaw injury that resulted in him having three operations in a week.

He missed the final month of the season after sustraining the injury in a collision with eam-mate Joe Bennett during the 3-3 draw at Ipswich on April 12.

The jaw - which was broken in two places - was reset. He then had to go back under the knife in the same week to cure a long-standing ankle injury.

Hines will probably have a lighter pre-season than his team-mates as a result, but should be ready for competitive games by the end of July.

He said: "By mid-July I should be up to speed with my ankle and for my jaw it will be the end of July.

"It's only been six weeks since my operation so I'm still easing into it. It's just getting the fundamentals of doing a light jog and getting the feeling back into my ankle and getting the stability back.

"But when it comes to the start of the season, I should be jogging at a good pace and I will maybe just be a couple of weeks behind the rest of the lads."

Hines was left on a liquid diet while he recovered from the injury.

He continued: "It's good to finally talk again and eat normally again. A broken jaw is a hard injury to come back from because you need your mouth for everything.

"It was horrible not being able to eat the foods you want to eat and having to liquidise everything. It's good to be just talking again!"

The injury was sustained when he headed the back of Bennett's head trying to stop an Ipswich player winning a ball in the air.

He continued: "I just remember all this blood in my mouth, but because I wasn't unconscious I thought I was all right.

"But as the game went on I could tell the jaw wasn't stable - it didn't feel connected to my head! It was only adrenalin that got me through the next ten minutes.

"After that I couldn't carry on. I couldn't head the ball because the thought of the jaw coming away was unbearable. I heard that Andy Halliday had a good game after I went off and scored his first goal for Middlesbrough, but that's all I remember about the game!

"To clarify it, I didn't lose any teeth! It was just two clean breaks in my jaw. I broke it on my chin and on the side of my cheek.

"They had to plate them both together and they had to remove a wisdom tooth that I'd cracked, but apart from that I didn't lose any teeth. I heard that the groundsmen were looking for them (the teeth) after the game, but they were all in my mouth.

"I was on a liquid diet for four weeks. The first week was obviously the worst. Because it was nice weather, everyone was having barbecues but I was eating a lot of soup.

"We tried liquidising bangers and mash but it's just not the same, you want the feeling of chewing and biting. I had a lot of smoothies and milkshakes. Then I started to move on to fish; I could slide it through my mouth.

"As time went on I started to be able to bite and chew slightly, but I'd lost a lot of weight by then.

"I had to have a second op because my bite wasn't right. I didn't want to have a third op, so I was careful not to eat the wrong things too soon.

"It ended up being three operations in three weeks so I was just full of anaesthetic! But with my ankle it was a case of when to get it done.

"I was always going to have it done after my last ankle operation. We were going to wait till the end of the season when we were safe.

"But when I broke my jaw I was out for the rest of the season anyway, so it was best to get it done as soon as possible. It worked out well in the end but I'm still disappointed my season ended the way it did."