ROME – Conditions stable at night, but still very serious, for Alex Zanardi , hospitalized in the intensive care unit of the Siena hospital.
The former driver was involved in an accident near Pienza yesterday, June 19, while riding the handbike, during the Obiettivo tricolor relay with other Paralympic athletes.
Assisting the champion are his wife Daniela, who was following the caravan, and his son Niccolò.
The next medical report from the Sienese healthcare company is expected around 10 am this morning.
Yesterday at the Polyclinic Le Scotte Alex Zanardi underwent neurosurgical and maxillofacial surgery.
Alex Zanardi, the handbike accident in Pienza
The accident occurred while Zanardi, along with about thirty Paralympic friends and athletes from his Objective 3 team, was traveling on the provincial road 146 of the Val d'Orcia for a relay race dedicated to the restart of Italy after the coronavirus.
At the end of a descent, in a curve, his handbike suddenly changed trajectory ending up against the trailer of a truck that was passing in the opposite direction.
The truck tried to avoid it, but the Bolognese champion still ended up first against the step used by the driver to climb and then against the body that carries the spare wheel .
His helmet has been shattered.
Immediately his condition was very serious and he was taken with the helicopter to the hospital.
The prosecutor and the carabinieri are working to reconstruct the dynamics of the accident, also through the images of an amateur video that would have filmed the scene.
It remains to understand above all what caused the sudden change of direction of the vehicle on which the Paralympic athlete traveled.
“He did not make a mistake on the trailer truck, he made a mistake, he embarked,” explained his coach Mario Valentini last night, destroyed by pain.
The carabinieri brought the truck to Siena and placed it under arrest. (source ANSA, video agency Vista / Alexander Jakhnagiev)
Source: Blitz Quotidiano