Photo: KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP / Getty Images
For: Kike Frías Updated 26 Jan 2022, 19: 40 pm EST
As the days go by, more details are revealed of the very serious accident that keeps Colombian cyclist Egan Bernal in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with extreme medical care, although already conscious after several hours in a coma.
While training in the morning hours last Monday 01 January, Bernal hit the rear of a passenger bus. Through social networks, several videos and photos went viral where the cyclist can be seen lying on the pavement behind the bus, who also suffered a strong dent in his rear, which evidenced the force of the crash.
About this, the former Colombian cyclist Santiago Botero, close to the winner of the Tour de France (2019) and the Giro d’Italia (2021 ), indicated that Egan was distracted and therefore did not see the passenger vehicle that was parked further on.
In an interview for the media Colombian Blu Radio, Botero He assured that he has communicated with some of the cyclists who were with “El Cóndor” and they told him that indeed Bernal i I was distracted and at a very high speed.
“I was talking to people close to me and the issue is that he was distracted, so much so that the bus overtook him and they managed to get off the passengers. Besides, there were two ahead of him, he wasn’t even alone. He can’t see and crashes into 24 or 19 kilometers per hour. The worst thing a cyclist can have is a hit against a static object”
Santiago Botero
While regretting that the incident occurred because of the love, respect and admiration he has for Egan, Botero also explained how he could have given the accident from his experience as a cyclist: in his opinion he was doing an exercise against the clock (one of the most demanding) in the wrong place.
Due to the speed that is maintained in time trials, Santiago’s recommendation is that be practiced in a velodrome, because “when you make a lot of effort, you lose focus. He must have looked down, the bus passed. It was an unfortunate issue for him”.
The medical specialists who operated on him urgently at the Clínica Universidad La Sábana intervened on his spine, specifically the “T5 vertebra to T6 vertebra with a traumatic disc herniation”. Due to this type of injury, a person can become paralyzed.
In the intervention they also achieved preserve Bernal’s neurological integrity and did not lose the functionality of the affected area.
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