[caption id="attachment_66820" align="aligncenter" width="600" caption="Mark McGovern."]
Police in San Francisco arrested and later released a man in connection with the attack on a Fermanagh man during a Gaelic football game in June that left the victim in a coma.
And a special collection will be taken up this Sunday at Croke Park during the All Ireland football final to help defray huge medical costs for Mark McGovern (22) who came out of the coma last month, but who still faces a long road to recovery.
McGovern's medical bill is now in the region of $1 million.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Patrick Power, 26, of Half Moon Bay was released over the weekend without charges being filed.
Power had been arrested Thursday on suspicion of battery that caused serious bodily injury in the June 25 incident, which occurred on the far side of the field from where the ball was being contested.
The McGovern family flew to San Francisco and spent weeks coaxing him back to consciousness. McGovern is now recuperating at the Laguna Honda Rehabilitation Center.
"He is flying in comparison to what he was. He is walking by himself and talking although his voice is like someone with a sore throat," his sister Grace told the Irish Independent.
"He is fully aware of what happened and that he was in a coma. At the start he asked one of his friends (what happened) and he just said it was a tackle but he is now being more inquisitive and he knows it was an attack."
Patrick Power, meanwhile, was suspended for 96 weeks by the GAA, but the Ulster Gaelic football club in San Francisco, the team McGovern was playing for, has called the suspension too lenient.
McGovern was playing for the Ulster GAA Club against the local Celts side. He flew to San Francisco on a JI Visa in part to play football for the summer and was in the city for just a week when the incident took place on June 25. McGovern had lined out for the Fermanagh senior side in this year's Dr. McKenna Cup.
