There are no medical reports on the conditions of Alex Zanardi today, transferred yesterday to the neurosurgical intensive care unit of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan.
The hospital's communication office has made it known, where the Paralympic champion, operated three times in the head in Siena after the dramatic accident on June 19 in a handbike, was transferred yesterday from the Lecco neuro-rehabilitation center Villa Beretta because of his conditions clinics were no longer stabilized, a choice, as far as we learn, also due to the fact that a little fever occurred between Thursday and yesterday. At least until yesterday evening intubation for Zanardi was not necessary.
THE SITUATION - Alex Zanardi's clinical conditions have become unstable and he is again in an intensive care unit, that of San Raffaele in Milan, where he was transferred in the afternoon from Villa Beretta. The long neuro-rehabilitation process started on Tuesday in the specialist center of Costa Masnaga, in Lecco, where the Paralympic champion had been transported as soon as his conditions stabilized after the three head surgeries at the head lasted less than four days. Siena hospital. The road to recovery therefore appears even more complicated.
According to the little that filters, with the passing of the days the effect of massive sedation is slowly fading and inevitably increases the suffering of Zanardi's brain. It is not excluded that intubation with assisted breathing in intensive care, a department that Villa Beretta does not have, as a rehabilitation center, is necessary again. Certainly the approximately 400 kilometers of road traveled by ambulance from Siena to Lombardy made themselves heard, when on Tuesday the ex Formula 1 driver and rally was transported to the center of Costa Masnaga. A decisive choice after it had been possible to reduce and then suspend the sedation, just over a month after the terrible crash of June 19, when Zanardi on board his handbike during a charity race on the Sienese roads ended up against a truck. Neurological conditions have always been severe, but encouraging signals were recorded across the transfer of the Paralympic specimen responses to stimuli. Such as to start a rehabilitation path, inevitably long, as uncertain. In his room in Villa Beretta he was conscious only momentarily.
On the fourth day of hospitalization, the brief communication with which Claudio Zanon, medical director of the Valduce hospital in Como (to which the neuro-rehabilitation center belongs), arrived, announcing the novelty in the course. "In the face of the instability of the patient's clinical condition", after the confrontation with Franco Molteni, head of the rehabilitation department where he was hospitalized, and with the specialists, the transfer was arranged "with adequate means and adequate assistance". After a journey of about 40 kilometers by ambulance, at 4.30 pm Zanardi was welcomed into the San Raffaele neurosurgical intensive care unit, directed by Professor Luigi Beretta. As the hospital on the outskirts of Milan says in a note, the team immediately began carrying out the first investigations for the general classification of the clinical conditions.
On social media there is again a wave of prayers and encouragement from all fans in Italy and around the world who see Zanardi as a symbol of resistance. Until last night, a certain serenity filtered through the family, however serene it is possible to be in similar situations. "He'll find a way to run again," smiled his 21-year-old son Niccolò on Tuesday evening, after seeing his father. Those around him continue to hope strongly, also trusting in the proverbial energy of this man of almost 54 years, who in his life has been able to react to two frightening accidents, even after the amputation of the legs, returning to the wheel and conquering four golds and two Paralympic silvers, as well as a string of world medals, pedaling with the arms in a handbike.
