Michael Pearson making ‘unbelievable’ recovery

Michael (left) with his NEI team after winning the Supersport 600 race in Horice. Little was he to know what the rest of the Horice races was to hold.

Pearson was left fighting for survival after being taken off his bike in the Czech Republic on 18 May.

However, after undergoing 15 sessions of hour-long hyperbaric oxygen therapy at the RAMS Therapy Centre in Dunmurry, his broken ribs and pelvis have healed and his broken back is well on the road to recovery.

It all seems a long way from the crash, when he says his family was told he wasn’t expected to pull through a seven hour operation to stop internal bleeding.

“Nobody has ever pulled through an operation like that before,” he told the ‘STAR.’ “To come through and leave hospital two and a half weeks later was unbelievable.

“After I got home about a week, I started coming down to the RAMS Therapy Centre to take some oxygen on board. I’ve had about 15 hours in the tank now and it’s brought me on so much.”

The Lisburn man can still recall coming off his bike and being airlifted to hospital, where he underwent surgery on his extensive injuries.

“I remember the whole crash,” he said. “I started off into the first corner. It was slippy and I heard a bike falling behind me. I heard it coming down the road and I thought it was coming to collect me. Before I knew it, the bike hit me and took me off.

“I went into the trees and two bikes came in behind me and hit me on the back. They gave me serious injuries and internal bleeding.

“When I told the paramedics on the scene that I had severe back injuries and I thought internal bleeding, they brought me to hospital on the helicopter.

“I’ll never be able to thank them for what they did for me. They saved my life.

“When I crashed, I also ruptured the main artery to my heart and the main artery that runs down my back. I had quite a few long operations in the Czech Republic to get them to stop bleeding.”

After returning home and getting treatment at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Pearson has been undergoing regular hyperbaric oxygen treatment at RAMS Therapy Centre and it is the oxygen tank that he credits with what has so far been a miraculously quick recovery.

He said: “The doctors can’t believe the progress that I’ve made so far and it’s really all down to the RAMS therapy centre and everybody at it who have helped me so much.

“I’m now off the crutches. I had a broken pelvis, a broken back with rods and screws in it, I had a bone taken out of hip to fuse the bottom of my spine. I had broken ribs, a bruised lung and slight concussion.

“My ribs and my pelvis have healed and my back is healing really well. I’m walking, with a bit of a limp. I still have some ligament and tendon damage to my leg but, at the minute, it’s healing really fast.

“If it wasn’t for taking on the oxygen, I would still be four to eight weeks away from getting off the crutches. It has helped me so much.

“They told me that I would have a year plus to make a full recovery but now it looks like I’ll be fully recovered in eight to ten months instead of 12-16.”

Pearson, who is married to Lisburn girl Diane and has a son Lee (10), says he has yet to decide on his racing future after the horrifying crash:

“It makes you think I suppose.

“I’m not even thinking about the racing at the minute. I’m just concentrating on getting fit and back to normal health and work.

“After I do all that, I’ll consider my future in racing.”