Having stared death in the face twice in the space of a few terrible hours, boxing promoter Frank Maloney has admitted he is still coming to terms with both a tragic loss and with his own mortality.

On Friday, barely a month after finding top prospect Darren Sutherland dead as a result of apparent suicide and then suffering an out-of-body experience as his own heart stopped beating in hospital, Maloney will return to work promoting a show on Wearside.

But this time, instead of pacing earnestly beside the ring apron yelling advice and encouragement at his fighters while living every jab, hook and punch, Maloney will reluctantly watch the action from a seat in the stands.

The 56-year-old explained: "When they rushed me to hospital after I found Darren hanging in his apartment, a doctor told me my heart was a timebomb waiting to explode. Now I can't risk getting as excited at ringside as I did in the past.

"I wouldn't want to put my family through the worry of me being in hospital again. To be truthful, I wouldn't want to go through any of this again."

In a first full interview since the Sutherland tragedy, Maloney admitted he is still haunted by the thought that he should have sensed the full extent of the despondency felt by his Beijing Olympic bronze medallist.

It was in October last year that Maloney, renowned as a talent-spotter who most notably steered Lennox Lewis to the undisputed world heavyweight championship, beat a posse of rival promoters to sign Sutherland as a professional.

Four subsequent knockout wins at super-middleweight offered ample evidence of the popular Irishman's potential. But now? Maloney said: "I'm asking questions of myself. I have always believed in my ability to pick boxers with something to offer. I talk to them, try to understand them and when I first met Darren I liked what he had to say, I liked the belief he had in himself at that time.

"Since his death I've been thinking if there were things I should have spotted - did I miss something in talking to Darren? I've gone over all the emails he sent me, the questions he asked me and I just can't work out what changed him from the guy I first met in Dublin to what happened that tragic day."

A full inquest, yet to be arranged, might provide some answers. But Maloney has already provided one of his own.

"Do I feel guilty over what happened to Darren? No, because professionally I did everything I could do. And so did my team."

Maloney revealed how, prior to finding Sutherland's body at the boxer's flat in Bromley on 14 September, he had already arranged for the 27-year-old to see a clinical psychologist and a life counsellor.

This followed a telephone call from Sutherland's trainer, Brian Lawrence, who reported that the boxer was unhappy and unsure if he wanted to continue in his chosen sport.

Maloney recounted the tale over lunch at a restaurant just round the corner from his office in Chislehurst High Street in Kent.

"We actually had a meeting in this very place on the Thursday before Darren died," he said. "The whole training team were here, plus an advisor who had flown over from Ireland.

"We discussed everything. We went through every angle, if Darren didn't box again, if he did carry on, things like that. I thought we left that meeting all on the same page." Maloney insisted he applied no pressure on Sutherland to carry on towards the championships that might have made a lot of money for both men.

He said: "I always take my fighters through the negatives and the positives of them boxing. Then the choice is theirs, it can never be mine.

"If a boxer doesn't want to box, he doesn't have to box. I couldn't make Darren box if he didn't want to box."

Knowing that Sutherland was wavering, Maloney took him off this week's Sunderland bill and plans were made for a training break in Portugal "where he could make up his mind one way or the other".

The subsequent shock of finding Sutherland dead affected Maloney in more ways than one.

He said: "For a some time I just stood there staring at him, talking to him to see if he was all right. I couldn't comprehend what I was looking at." Then Maloney's heart, already severely stressed after a controversial decision had gone against one of his boxers at a show three days earlier, began to fail.

He was rushed to hospital and it was there, while undergoing tests, that he had a heart attack.

Maloney recalled: "Someone was saying, 'His heart's stopped, his heart's frozen'. There was quite a bit of panic around me, then it felt like I was floating. It was the strangest thing that's ever happened to me.

"I was not in my body but I was there, if you know what I mean.

"The next thing I knew, somebody had smacked me in the chest and a voice said, 'He's come back, he's steadying'."

Maloney's problem was diagnosed as blocked heart valves. They have now been cleared and he says he has never felt better physically.

Still, given everything that has happened, has he considered quitting boxing? "I could retire if I wanted to," Maloney replied. "But what would I do if I didn't do this? The truth is that my life is steeped in boxing, it's what keeps me going.

"Boxing promoters are like football managers. We get emotionally involved and we live under constant stress but if you took that stress away it would be the worst thing for us."

Even while he was in hospital, Maloney completed the signing of Commonwealth Games gold medallist David Price. The 6ft 8ins heavyweight will now fight in Sunderland, on the same bill that should have showcased Sutherland.

So the game goes on.