From hero to broken man and back again
It’s been a hell of a year for Ian Hutchinson – famous one moment with five wins in one week, followed by a horrific smash which nearly cost him his leg the next. Now he’s back forTT2011 and he’s left Honda for Yamaha. Things aren’t standing still for the record-breaker who stunned all last year.
Words: Tony Carter Pics: Stephen Davison/Pacemaker Press
CONFRONTED with the distinct probability of losing the lower half of his left leg, following a short circuit smash at silverstone last september, Ian Hutchinson pleaded with surgeons at University Hospital coventry to try everything they possibly could to save it.
He’s the kind of individual who always believes that something can be done, however grim the situation. Three months after he’d etched his name in TT folklore by becoming the first rider in the 104-year history of the event to win five races in one week, Hutchy’s racing career was quite simply hanging in the balance.
He suffered compound fractures to his tibia and fibula when he was hit by another rider’s machine when lying in the middle of the track after a fall at the first corner in the penultimate round of the British supersport championship.
“We’d had problems with the Honda in qualifying as the head gasket had gone and we struggled to get many laps in,” said the 31-year-old from Bingley.
“It was a dark and miserable day, the race should probably never have gone ahead.
“I started some way down the field and went for a risky outside line in the wet going into the first corner on the opening lap.
“Graham Gowland clipped me and the impact knocked me off the side of my bike and left me in the middle of the track.
“Most of the riders managed to somehow avoid hitting me until one of the last couple clouted me hard and ran over my left leg.”
He was airlifted to Coventry’s University Hospital where the first surgeon to look at the badly smashed limb said there was no option other than to amputate.
“The circulation had stopped and it was blue – a completely dead piece of meat.
“I wasn’t accepting that. They first said they would take it off from the knee down – below the top fracture. I thought if I lost my foot it would be the end of my racing career so I asked them to please try and save it.”
The orthopaedic surgeons listened to his plea and first operated on him to fit an external fixator. They put two screws in the top of the leg and two in the ankle, with two rods on the outside of the fixator to strengthen and support it.
Shortly after the operation it was apparent that the blood flow had returned, so it was successful. But there were other complications – some of the arteries had been severed.
Ian spent an initial three weeks in hospital but came home for a short while before he underwent skin grafts in nearby Bradford Royal Infirmary, where he spent a further three weeks.
Then he had two more weeks in Coventry for more operations. An extra ring was put around the external metal cage next to one of the fractures to stabilise the leg a bit more.
That fracture had bone grafts inserted into it and was screwed back together.
The full career-threatening extent of the injuries was not properly divulged at the time.
By mid-February he had undergone no fewer than 15 operations on his leg and he’d already lost track of how long he’d spent in the various hospitals. Finally, surgeons ‘reamed’ down through the centre of the undamaged femur with a drill bit to reach live bone cells. These were then inserted into the last of the tibia fractures.
The recuperation period was ongoing from early December and once the Yorkshireman was reasonably confident that he would retain his left limb, his inbuilt steely determination drove him to regain his fitness levels.
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