Townsend, who represented England 13 times, admitted that seeing two rollers positioned beside the pitch during the warm-up seemed unusual.
“I remember wondering what they were doing because I had never encountered anything like that during my career. Then we were called over to warm up, so I stopped thinking about it,” he said.
“The next time I noticed the roller, I was directly underneath it. Thankfully, I avoided any major injury. I suffered a few bruises and bumps but was fortunate enough to walk away.”
Despite experiencing several injury setbacks throughout his career, Townsend insisted the accident would not prevent him from carrying on.
“My team-mates could not believe I resumed the warm-up and urged me to see the doctor,” he said.
“It was extremely heavy, but I managed to raise it slightly and push it away. When its full weight was on top of me, I could feel myself being crushed.
“I got my left arm underneath it, which eased some of the pressure. My team-mates then came over and lifted it enough for me to slide free. However, when it was pressing down on my left leg, the experience was genuinely frightening.”
Townsend feared the accident could cause further damage to his left knee and ankle, both of which had previously required surgery.
He said: “I believed either my left ankle or my left knee was about to break, and I thought my career might be over. Fortunately, I managed to limp away and felt better after a few minutes.”
The midfielder later joked about the accident on Instagram, referring to an earlier post that contrasted a sunny away trip in Thailand with his previous visits to Stoke’s Bet365 Stadium.
He wrote: “Perhaps playing away at Stoke was not so bad after all.”
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