Hawthorn boss Sam Mitchell has opened up on his nightmare trip to the United States, revealing that his family were robbed during the vacation.
Mitchell, 42, and his family had been planning a trip to visit New York for years.
He, his wife Lyndall, son Smith and twin daughters Scarlett and Emerson had made the trip over to the States for their Christmas vacation, but disaster struck after he collapsed in the hotel.
A bout of bacterial pneumonia left the former Hawthorn and West Coast star unable to get out of bed on Christmas day after doctors had feared that his lungs were collapsing.
The footy coach had started to feel ill upon arriving in the Big Apple but so much planned for their trip, he was insistent he was going to power through.
The situation changed quickly. Mitchell had been having breakfast with his family inside his hotel one morning. They had planned to visit the 9/11 Memorial but the 42-year-old told his partner Lyndall that he was in no fit state to head out and was going to head back up to the room.
Hawthorn boss Sam Mitchell has opened up on his nightmare trip to the United States, revealing that his family were robbed during their vacation
Mitchell was loaded into an ambulance after falling ill during a family trip to New York at Christmas
He took several paces away from the table where his family were eating before collapsing on the ground.
He was shipped off to hospital and following scans and X-Rays, doctors revealed that both his lungs were collapsing. Mitchell added that his body felt like it was ‘on fire’.
He was worryingly diagnosed with multiple conditions. Including influenza A, parainfluenza, superimposed bacterial pneumonia, campylobacter gastroenteritis and other complications.
‘Bacterial pneumonia… is treatable but quite aggressive,’ he said. ‘The thing that the doctors said at the end, when they looked at the medical charts, they were like “wow”… they said: “You have got a fair cocktail of stuff here”,’ Mitchell told News Corp last year.
Thankfully, Mitchell made a recovery following the scary ordeal. The family subsequently booked a trip over to Los Angeles, having rescheduled their flights back home to Australia.
The Hawks boss, who is seriously impressing with the work he has done with the Victorian side in recent seasons, was able to take his family to Disneyland and other attractions in Los Angeles.
But disaster struck again.
‘I got quite sick in New York,’ he said to The Dyl & Friends podcast.
Mitchell revealed that he and his family subsequently took a trip to Los Angeles after spending time in New York but therre their car was broken into
‘We checked out of the hotel and we had a late flight, so we’re flying from LA to Melbourne, and it was like an 8.30pm flight so we parked at this shopping centre called The Grove, sort of a fancy place in LA.
‘And so I parked the big Suburban — (I was) terrified to drive into this car park — park it miles away, making sure no one dints the hire car.
‘All of our suitcases — so three kids, there are five suitcases, all of our backpacks, all of it in the car.
‘We get back to the car, it’s probably about 4pm, knowing we’ve got to be at the airport at 5.30, I’m getting ready to go get back to the car [and] one of the windows is down.
‘I’m like, ‘Emmy’ — my daughter — I’m like: “Emmy, I can’t believe you left the window down”.
‘Anyway, we get over a bit closer, and sure enough, it’s broken — someone smashed it. They’ve left all the suitcases but they’ve stolen everything else, so all of our backpacks, all of our phones, all the kids’ phones were in there.’
With the family due to fly home in a matter of hours, Mitchell revealed that their passports had also been taken – but remarkably, they were able to recover their stolen items, using one nifty trick and some help from the police.
‘So we had four hours before our flight, and called the police, called the security of the of the place we were in — and they were absolutely A+. And through all the Apple stuff that we had that had been taken — Air Pods and iPads and stuff — we actually ended up finding everything.
Mitchell (centre) revealed their passports had been stolen but they managed to recover them thanks to a nifty trick
‘They’d stolen our passports as well, so we weren’t going to be able to get back into the country anyway, and we were going to be stuck in America — not a great place to be stuck without a passport.
‘But within four hours the police had hunted these people down, found them, and we got it all back, made our flight and lived happily ever after.’
He also revealed that the shopping centre had given his family multiple pairs of free headphones after the robbery.
‘In fact, The Grove was so amazing, we had a couple of pairs of the big Apple headphones, and they just had an Apple store so they went and grabbed them, and said: “we’re so sorry”, and then they gave them to us.
‘And once we got our stuff back, we tried to give it back and they’re like “no, no keep it”, so all of my kids now have got these like $1000 headphones.’
Having shot up the ladder in 2024 to make finals for the first time since 2018, the Hawks are looking a serious contender to challenge for a spot in the top four this season.
One of the most entertaining teams to watch, Mitchell’s side are 2-0 for the beginning of the 2025 season, having beaten last year’s Grand Finalists, Sydney, by 20 points in the AFL’s Opening Round, before thumping Essendon 111-85 in Round 1.
