Tragedy strikes the Dakar Rally again. The Catalan motorcyclist Carles Falcón died on Monday as a result of the injuries suffered last Sunday, January 7, when he fell in the second stage of the competition, for which he had had to be resuscitated in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert. The TwinTrain Racing Team explained in a statement that the neurological damage caused by the cardiorespiratory arrest at the time of the accident was "irreversible", after the rider suffered cerebral edema and a fracture in the C2 vertebra, in addition to breaking five ribs, his left wrist and collarbone.
After the accident suffered in the stage that took place between Al Henakiyah and Al Duwadimi and which forced the rider to be admitted to a hospital in Riyadh since Monday 8 in the early hours of Monday morning, he was repatriated to Spain last Friday on a medical plane and was admitted to the ICU since then in critical condition.
TwinTrain Racing Team highlighted in the text that "Carles was a smiling person, always active and who passionately enjoyed everything he did, especially the motorcycles", in addition to completing that he died "doing something that was his dream, racing the Dakar" and that "he was enjoying himself", because "he was happy on the bike".
"We must remember him for his smile and for the happiness he generated in everyone," said the statement, which said that despite being a computer engineer by training, he was a motorcycle instructor and travel guide "by passion."
Carles Falcon in action during stage 1 of the 2023 Dakar. Photo: REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed
In addition, he asked "that the privacy of the farewell acts that will take place in the coming days be maintained" and thanked the understanding.
Last Friday, the team itself stated that he had been repatriated to Spain, where doctors were going to carry out "new tests" as established by the "protocol", since the pilot needed to be operated on urgently for the C2 vertebra, although the intervention was postponed last Wednesday because the "priority" was to reduce the cerebral edema.
Before his return to Spain, Falcón was admitted from the early hours of last Monday until this Friday in an induced coma in the hospital in Riyadh, whose medical services authorized his transfer to Spain on Wednesday 10.
Falcón, from the Original by Motul category, crashed at kilometre 448 of the second stage special and, alerted by a rider who was following the motorcyclist, the organisers sent a helicopter, whose medical service attended to the motorcyclist, seriously injured after falling with his head on the ground.