Colombian cyclist Egan Bernal, current champion of the Giro d’Italia, said Thursday that he had “almost 20 broken bones” in the accident in which he almost lost his life and assured that Wednesday was his “last major surgery and it seems that everything went well.”
“It is being the toughest race, but I have had a group of excellent people close to me,” said the Ineos Grenadiers rider in a message on Instagram, along with a photo of him with a collar, monitored and smiling in bed at the University Clinic of La Sabana, where he receives care.
The cyclist, who crashed on Monday of last week at high speed once morest a bus on the highway that goes from Bogotá to Tunja, at the height of the municipality of Gachancipá, when the vehicle had stopped, listed his injuries: « 11 ribs, femur, patella, T5-T6, odontoids, metacarpal, a thumb, I knocked out a tooth and perforation of both lungs».
“I almost killed myself, but you know what, I’m grateful to God for putting me through this test,” said the Colombian, gesturing with his strutted hands, and added: “now to recover and do this once more… I’M BACK!! And let’s rock.
The University Clinic of La Sabana de Chía, a town near Bogotá, reported on Wednesday that Bernal underwent vertical spine surgery with “excellent results” – the last important one, according to Bernal himself – and is currently recovering.
“The objectives of biomechanical stability of the cervical spine were achieved with excellent clinical results, without presenting complications during surgery,” he added.
Egan Bernal responds well to all his surgeries
In a new statement released Thursday, the clinic noted that Bernal, also a 2019 Tour de France champion, is doing well on his first postoperative day following his cervical spine surgery.
“Due to his adequate response to treatment, at this time the patient is in the Intermediate Care Unit, this means, the step prior to hospitalization, which demonstrates his progressive clinical evolution,” says today’s report.
Since the crash, in which he suffered fractures in some vertebrae, in the right femur and patella and in several ribs and also had a pulmonary perforation, the runner has undergone several operations, some of them important, and all of them successful.
Egan Bernal had previously referred to his followers in another message in which he said that “following having had a 95% chance of becoming a paraplegic and almost losing his life doing what he likes the most,” he wanted to thank the support he has given received and care at the clinic.
