Australia team doctor Peter Brukner has revealed Phillip Hughes died from an injury which had only occurred once before in cricket.

After being hit in the neck by a bouncer, Hughes suffered a vertebral artery dissection, a tear to the artery which has similar symptoms to strangulation and strokes.

The 25-year-old died on Thursday afternoon having failed to regain consciousness in St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney after being struck by the ball when batting for South Australia at the SCG on Tuesday.

“Subarachnoid haemorrhage is the medical term for it and it is extremely rare,” Dr Brukner said.

“If you look in the literature there is only about 100 cases ever reported so this is incredibly rare with only one previous case ever reported as the result of a cricket ball.”

Dr Tony Grabs, the trauma director at St Vincent’s who performed surgery on Hughes upon his arrival, said the hospital had never seen the injury before.

Dr Grabs said the decision to operate on Hughes was taken almost immediately, and everything possible was done to keep him alive.

“We did a CAT scan of the head to determine what we could do,” he said.

“This occurred very early and it was recognised we had to make an intervention to help get the pressure down in the brain.

“There he had extensive surgery to remove some of the skull from around his brain to help allow the brain to expand so it wasn’t compressed.

“The surgery took an hour and 20 minutes or so and he was transferred back to intensive care.

“Our normal procedure is to induce the coma, rest the patient and the brain and look after all the bodily functions for him.

“Over a period of the first 24-48 hours he did not make very much improvement and unfortunately, as a consequence of the injury, he died.”

A visibly-shaken Dr Brukner hailed the work of Dr Grabs and his team.

“I’d like to pay tribute to St Vincent’s hospital team, the doctors, the nurses, the social workers,” he said.

“They have done a magnificent job and given magnificent support to the family and friends of Phillip.

“Full credit to this amazing institution.”