One of the best things about being at the MXoN in Ironman, was being able to talk to global dirt bike legend, Mike Brown, who was in good spirits after his scary cash that left Mike with a broken neck and having two strokes in the hospital.
Brown was there with the Triumph team and was able to walk the track with the Mikkel Haarup on the Friday and also was kind enough to give us 15 minutes of his time to talk about the crash, his injuries as well as looking back on his brilliant and very long career that took him all around the world as well as to the top in America where he won the US 125 outdoors to add to his 125 GP wins and his British motocross titles.
But to begin with, Brown told us about his recovery after his horrendous injuries:
It’s getting there. Each week it’s better, you know, the first.I hold up quicker. Each day I notice a lot of big difference and now it’s a week at a time and I’m lucky just to be walking and happy to be doing that there and back on my bicycle now so moving steps forward so yeah, everything’s going the right direction. Hopefully in, you know, another month or so I should be back to
It’s crazy. I broke my neck in three spots and broke number C one and a half. I never had no pain.It’s crazy…No pain. Mostly my problem was my vision. It’s gotten…it’s probably 99% better now, but my balance was off and it says my ears. So yeah, we keep working to get that better and like I said, each week it’s better. So hopeful for a full recovery one day soon, hopefully.
It’s only been three and a half months now, so they give me up to a year for the nerve stuff and hopefully my eyes and ears will get better when they can adjust. I should still have my neck collar on for December the first. So they said if I’m on level grounds, I can take it off.So yeah, until December, they really can’t adjust my neck, my ears, for my balance, until the end. So it’s getting there.
On how the crash happened
It was like a faster left sweeping corner and it threw me to the right and before I could get my arms out or anything, I was straight on my head. And it’s like a roll of dirt on the edge of the track and I looked straight into that. But I got up and never was paralyzed. I got up, took my helmet off drove two hours to the hospital! I got lucky…. lucky that when I took my helmet off, I didn’t paralyze myself.
But then I had the two strokes after I got to the hospital. So that’s probably, more than my breaking my bones, it is the strokes that I had has slowed me down a little bit.
Get the full interview below:
