Egan Bernal: "I had a 95% chance of becoming a paraplegic"

Egan Bernal, in the ICU of the La Sabana University Clinic.Instagram

Since last Monday he crashed with his bicycle at 65 per hour in a red bus stopped on the highway, it was known about the life of Egan Bernal, about his hours in the La Sabana University Clinic, in Chía, between the operating room and the ICU, by press releases issued from the hospital, seven in total, documenting the seriousness of his many injuries and his ability, and that of the doctors, to overcome them and improve hour by hour.

On the fourth day it was Egan, just turned 25, who came alive, word and image, some phrases that are a sigh of relief, a thanks to life, a photograph, the OK gesture with one hand, a face serious and sorrowful, a collar around his neck, in a post on his Instagram.

"After having had a 95% chance of becoming a paraplegic and almost losing my life doing what I like to do the most," writes the only Colombian cyclist who has won the Tour, and at 22 years old, and you have to remember how, The blow was so tremendous, along with the knee and femur fractures he suffered, he also crushed his chest, a fractured rib caused a pneumothorax and a fracture dislocation of several thoracic vertebrae crushed his spinal cord, and they were about to sever it and left him paraplegic, but the neurology surgeons were brave and managed to decompress and free her, without apparent injury. “I want to thank God, the clinic, all its specialists, for doing the impossible; to my family, to María Fernanda Motas [her partner], friends and to all of you for your wishes.”

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A post shared by Egan Bernal (@eganbernal)

The Zipaquirá cyclist is still in the ICU, he says, waiting for new surgeries.

This process is recounted in statement number seven from the university clinic, which explains that once the acute phase of "high-energy trauma" has been overcome - the one in which the only objective is to save life, the first three hours after the accident - and the primary, the first 24 hours in the ICU in which the body seeks balance, the winner of the 2021 Giro is in the secondary phase, in which his rehabilitation begins and minor surgeries can be carried out that were pending due to not being of gravity.

There are two operations, two new visits to the operating room, in which they will repair a metacarpal fracture in his right hand and several dental and alveolar fractures in his mouth.

Bernal also thanks in the post the support of the Ineos team, especially that of Xabier Artetxe, the Basque coach and director who is in Colombia in charge of half a dozen cyclists who, together with the leader Bernal, were preparing to train at altitude, in the Cundinamarca highlands, the first competitions of the season.

Neither those responsible for the clinic nor the team nor the cyclist himself have evoked possible dates of leaving the hospital, beginning rehabilitation, returning to the bicycle, returning to compete.

Some specialists have advanced, with optimism, they recognize that the minimum recovery period for such serious injuries will be eight months.

It is certain, therefore, that the long-awaited duel with the Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, winner of the last two Tours played after Egan's victory, will have to wait until 2023 and the Basque Country, from where the Tour will start.

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