No memory of crash, Hinchcliffe says
Canadian faces more surgery but finds positive spin on eve of Toronto Indy
Canadian IndyCar racing driver James Hinchcliffe says that although he never lost consciousness when he lay gravely injured in the tub of his wrecked car at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May, he “mercifully” has no memory of the 220-plusm.p.h. crash or its immediate aftermath, in which he nearly bled to death.
In a wide-ranging interview with motorsport reporters Wednesday, the Oakville-born-and-raised warrior also revealed that he suffered a broken pelvis in the wreck and that he will have to undergo a second surgery.
Total healing time for everything will take between two and three more months.
On the eve of the annual Honda Indy, being held a month early this weekend because of the Pan Am Games, Hinchcliffe held out hope that he might yet make an appearance in Toronto but that was before he started talking about his injuries, another operation and the total recovery time from both that will very likely keep him out of his racing car this season, if not longer.
Immediate post-season test sessions scheduled to start in September could also be in doubt.
But “Hinch,” a.k.a. the Mayor of Hinchtown (his social media community), said that despite everything, his recovery from what was an extremely close call is going better than just about everybody expected.
“Every doctor that I’ve seen, every specialist that we’ve been with has been very, very pleased and in some cases surprised at the level of recovery, which is obviously great news,” he said. “I guess we’re quick in that sense, too, which is good.”
Hinchcliffe, driving for Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in his fifth fulltime season in the Verizon IndyCar Series, was practising for the Indianapolis 500 on May 18 when a front-- suspension part failed at more than 220 mph and he crashed into the wall in turn three of the Indianapolis Speedway.
When that happened, a piece of the suspension broke through the cockpit wall and pierced his left leg, hitting an artery.
The full-time IndyCar safety team reached him literally moments after his car came to rest, determined the extent of his injuries (“they saw the pool of blood on the floor,” Hinchcliffe joked) and instead of stopping for consultation at the infield medical centre, drove him directly by ambulance to the nearby Methodist Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery.
He reportedly was given 14 pints of blood from the time the safety team reached his wrecked car to the conclusion of the operation that saved his life. Hinchcliffe said he only became aware later of how close he came to dying.
“Despite being conscious throughout the whole process, I have mercifully been spared any memory of the accident whatsoever,” he said. “Even the first couple days at the hospital are a bit of a blur.
“But it really wasn’t until several days later when I’d been moved out of ICU, was kind of sitting around with some friends and family and some of the doctors, really hearing all of their first-person accounts of how that day was for them, that it really began to sink in just how serious the injuries were and how very close it was to being a different story. That was the first time I had an appreciation of the severity of the situation.”
Recovering at his home in the Zionsville suburb of Indianapolis, the racer said he’s come to the conclusion that daytime television in the United States is a wasteland but that he’s keeping his mind busy in other ways.
“The biggest decision I have every day,” he said, “is how much time I want to spend sitting on the couch versus lying in bed. I still do spend a significant amount of the day kind of off my feet.
“The pain level has been going down every single day. I’m almost completely off pain medication now, which is great. One of the most uncomfortable parts of it has been the fracture to my pelvis. Obviously there’s not a whole lot you can do about that.
“My days are spent doing a lot of recovery, doing a lot of reading. I’m obviously not allowed to exercise any of my body, but I was told I could keep my forearm strength good, so I had my trainer drop off anything that was grip-strength related so I can hold onto the (steering) wheel when I eventually get tossed back into a car. It’s largely an existence of trying to rest up and get better.”
Hinchcliffe, who won the IndyCar race at New Orelans earlier this season, said he has good and bad days.
“You have days where it’s a little easier to move, days where it’s obviously a bit more difficult. You’re managing pain a bit more. Those days are getting fewer and fewer and further in between. That’s progress, as far as I’m concerned.”
He said the first thing he wanted to know after he realized he was in hospital was what had happened to put him there.
“That’s one of the first things I was curious about,” he said. “On a ventilator, I had to write on a piece of paper. I asked what happened. They told me part of the car broke. I asked which part, trying to figure it all out.”
After being discharged from hospital, “I sat with my engineers; I sat with my chief mechanics. I looked at the tub. I’ve been to the shop and seen the tub, seen the damage.
“It’s equal parts fascinating and terrifying, to be honest. It was literally one of those one in a million situations. But, honestly, I was just unlucky. At the same time I was incredibly lucky — not only for the safety team being there (but) as the doctors will tell you, if that piece had been five millimetres in a different direction, it might not have been a survivable injury. “I’m the luckiest, unlucky guy.” Although it’s highly unlikely he will make it to Toronto for the Honda Indy this weekend — he said it’s the most important race for a Canadian racing driver and he’s been coaching his replacement driver, Conor Daly, about the nuances of the Exhibition Place circuit — he will miss being there because he’s been a part of every Honda Indy, either by driving an Atlantic Championship car, or an Indy Lights machine, or an IndyCar, going back to 2006.
“It’s definitely going to be tough to not be on the grid,” he said. “But it is what it is. I know I’ll be back. I live to race another day. Even though I won’t be there for this one, I know I’ll get a chance to race there again and hopefully get a chance to win.”
“Despite being conscious throughout the whole process, I have mercifully been spared any memory of the accident whatsoever.”
JAMES HINCHCLIFFE
ON INDY CRASH