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'Like Christmas': Conor McGregor's incredible gesture stuns virus crisis workers

Yahoo Sports Staff
·3-min read
Conor McGregor paid and delivered (pictured right) medical equipment for surgeries in need during the coronavirus pandemic in Ireland. (Getty Images/Twitter)
Conor McGregor paid and delivered (pictured right) medical equipment for surgeries in need during the coronavirus pandemic in Ireland. (Getty Images/Twitter)

Conor McGregor announced in March that he was purchasing €1 million worth of personal protective equipment to donate to hospitals in Leinster province in Ireland that were fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.

That move, at least according to one doctor, helped keep their medical clinic protected when it otherwise would have run out of protective gear.

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Dr. Nina Byrnes, the medical director and founder of the Generation Health Medical Clinics in Dublin, said on Thursday that McGregor himself showed up and surprised her and her team with a box full of medical gowns.

“It was like Christmas,” Byrnes said on The Tonight Show.

“He himself and his team arrived into my surgery yesterday unexpected with a box. We were so shocked we sort of said, ‘Thank you,’ and were stunned. When they went out the door we opened the box and realized that they were gowns, and honestly it was like Christmas.

Myself and my manager ran downstairs after them to thank them because we had been trying really hard to get gowns. We could only find them at €9 a gown and you had to order 200, and we couldn’t afford to do that.

“So I would have had no gowns today if not for the charity.”

McGregor helps Ireland in need

Now McGregor almost certainly didn’t walk into an active surgery room like Byrnes said, but the act itself is still extremely generous — and sounds like one the medical clinic desperately needed.

The equipment drop was one of more than 170 that McGregor and his team with the charity Heroes Aid did across Ireland, and more are reportedly incoming, too.

Conor McGregor celebrates his first round TKO victory against Donald Cerrone in a welterweight bout during UFC 246 at T-Mobile Arena.
Conor McGregor celebrates his first round TKO victory against Donald Cerrone in a welterweight bout during UFC 246 at T-Mobile Arena on January 18, 2020 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Steve Marcus/Getty Images)

There were more than 4.4 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus worldwide as of Thursday night, according to The New York Times, and more than 301,000 deaths attributed to it. Ireland had nearly 24,000 cases and more than 1,500 deaths alone.

McGregor last stepped into the Octagon in January when he knocked out Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone in just 40 seconds at UFC 246. He said then that he hopes to fight again this summer, and sent a tweet this week hinting that bout could be in July. The 31-year-old went on a lengthy Twitter tirade on Monday after UFC 249, too, targeting Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Tony Ferguson and more.

McGregor has been very vocal throughout the pandemic, and asked Irish leaders to implement a “full lockdown” in March when he pledged the initial donation to help curb the spread of the virus.

“This fight needs us all,” McGregor said in a Facebook video in March. “We are all in the red corner together awaiting the bell. So let’s gather together and ring the bell ourselves, including the people of the rest of the world. True lockdown must begin, and it must begin now. A lockdown together. A lockdown united.”

With Ryan Young - Yahoo Sport US