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Take care partner, thanks for the racing memories and go enjoy life now
1978 - Coming into the '78 season, as I was practicing and testing in February, I crashed and ended up losing my spleen. The injury was a bit scary. My spleen actually exploded into five pieces. At the time of the crash I'm thinking 'What's happening here? Am I going to make it?' And I could feel myself going away (as in possibly death). Luckily I was with Sylvain Geboers, who was practicing with me at this local track, which also holds a big race every year. It's in the town of Mol, Belgium. Sylvain was good friends with the head surgeon of the local hospital. I told Sylvain 'I think I'm having a problem internally'. On the outside of my body there was not a scratch. I told him we should go to the hospital because I'm feeling very strange. I felt as though I was going to pass out. I got into the van, and crawled on the floor. Sylvain started driving right away .... we left the bikes there at the track. It was around lunch time, and as I said, Sylvain was good friends with the surgeon. So Sylvain stopped at the guy's home, because he knew that he would be there eating lunch. Sure enough, the surgeon was home eating his lunch. So he jumped into the van with us, and started checking me out. He said it's a good thing we stopped by, or I wouldn't of made it.
We got to the hospital, and they started to pump blood into me. The hospital staff had a hard time getting blood into me quick enough. I had one blood pouch connected into each arm, and the last thing I remember seeing is one doctor and one nurse squeezing a bag into each arm because I was losing so much blood internally.
Apparently, my heart stopped, and they had to give me an adrenalin injection directly into my heart. Of course, I was really happy when I finally woke up.
Surprisingly, two weeks later, I raced and won an international event. It's the biggest pre-Grand Prix event. It's called the 'Easter Trophy'. I won the 250 class, but I felt weird. It felt as though my insides were bouncing around. The rest of my season went just so-so. The spleen acts as a filter for your blood, and it's also a reserve area for blood. When you lose your spleen, it takes quite some time for your body to adjust fully. I don't know how much of that I can blame on my results for that season, but I ended up fifth in the 500cc championship.
http://www.fitzgbros.com/roger_decoster_part_i.htm
Stefan Everts had to have his dug out too.
How about if you lost it in 2001?
Personally, I don't think Davi will want to race with that much on the line. If he does, he is either forced to (financially) or he wants it so much more than most of us think. I hope he comes back stronger and better than ever because he seems like a pretty cool dude, and anyone who is as good as he is gets my respect.
Pit Row
You don't even want to go there....
Kidney loss is unlikely.
And my best to Davi.
Post a reply to: Davi Millsaps