Austin Forkner, who is getting ready to make his comeback at A1 this weekend on the Triumph to take on Haiden Deegan, says the brutal crash while leading Deegan in Dallas ended up saving his life.
The scans that were necessary because he had been knocked out, revealed an AVM in his brain that would have otherwise went unfound and could have been deadly. An AVM is a Brain Arteriovenous Malformation, which is a tangle of blood vessels that creates irregular connections between arteries and veins in the brain, and if it had ruptured, Forkner, could have went blind, had a stroke or even died.
Forkner explained at the SMX media day: “They were reviewing my head (after the crash) and found an AVM which could have killed me, it was kind of on the verge of something happening. Either way that would ruptured a bunch of blood vessels and caused a bleed, it probably would have blinded me. Worst case scenario it would have killed me best case scenario I would have had my brain bleeding – not good.
“It was pretty clear why (the crash) happened, I am a man of faith, now I got a kid on the way, if I hadn’t had that wreck in Dallas there is a good chance I wouldn’t have been able to see my kid. Because of that crash they caught that in my head and they said it was very close to rupturing.
“As gnarly of a surgery is was, and brutal, it was probably my gnarliest surgery. I was out of the hospital a couple of days, I couldn’t do anything for months because they didn’t want me to get my heart rate up and I was on some seizure medication, because that was one of the risks after surgery. I’ve got to be thankful that I can get to ride again I am still here.“
Now that he is back and understands why everything happened, Forkner is ready to race again. And he will be doing so in a stacked West coast lead by Deegan with Levi Kitchen also expected to be there along with McAdoo, Shimoda, Mosiman and Beaumer. A slew potential race winners!
And Austin says he is loving the Triumph so far, despite it being the first time he hasn’t ridden a Kawasaki in his pro career and for most of his amateur career: “It gets out of the gate good,” said Austin. “It likes to turn which on a supercross track is good, we are still a month out from West coast but I am already more comfortable on the bike than I thought I would be. Everything is flowing together really nicely, I think we are on the track.”
Austin came into the the pro ranks with that Deegan raw speed, mentality and aggression, he feared nobody. But now, he has to race effectively the young version of himself as a more mature rider after a slew of injuries, that will not be easy but Forkner clearly still believes he can turn his career around.
Forkner has always had the talent to win and, if he can finally make it through the season healthy, it could be a big battle between he and Deegan because Forkner is one of the very few riders that, as we saw last year, has the raw speed and the mentality to battle Deegan straight up.
Get the full interview below:
