Almost paralyzed
Radstar returns after terrible fall
03/28/2022, 08:01 am
Egan Bernal suffered a serious accident during training in January, and now the professional cyclist is back on the road. The former Tour de France winner broke almost 20 bones, both lungs were perforated, and paraplegia was apparently only just averted. Everything surpassed.
Just over two months after his serious fall, former Tour de France winner Egan Bernal is back on the road training with his bike. The 25-year-old posted a photo on Instagram on Sunday (local time) showing him cycling alongside another person in an orange jersey on a street. “The happiest day of my life,” wrote the Colombian professional cyclist. “After two months and 20 broken bones, I’m back here and wanting more. See you on the road.”
At the end of January, Bernal drove his time trial bike into a stationary bus while training. The Giro winner suffered several broken bones, including eleven ribs, two vertebrae, a thigh and a kneecap. In addition, both lungs were perforated. “I had a 95 percent chance of staying paraplegic or even losing my lifeby doing what I love to do,” Bernal said after the accident in a first statement circulated on Twitter: “I want to thank God and all the specialists for doing this Impossible made possible to have.”
Bernal had been operated on twice in the La Sabana University Clinic and was cared for in the intensive care unit. After two weeks, the Radstar, who was celebrated like a folk hero in his home country, left the clinic again. “Being alive again is like a rebirth for me”, Bernal said at the time. Just a week later he was back on the exercise bike.
In the first hours and days after the crash, it seemed completely impossible that everything would happen so quickly: the pictures after the violent accident alone gave me goosebumps. Bernal’s bike lay completely destroyed on a street near his hometown of Bogotá, his thigh was unnaturally deformed, his training colleagues stood next to him in horror, and a red bus had enormous body damage on the rear.