Bills pile up for fighter without insurance
Injury to Mexican boxer in T.O. raises questions about coverage
Last week, Guillermo (Vampiro) Herrera suffered a ruptured blood vessel in his brain during a boxing match at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel, and the headaches still come and go.
The tingling in his left leg? That’s an improvement. Last week the 32-year-old from Zamora, Mexico, couldn’t feel anything.
But the back pain is constant. So is anxiety over his prognosis and the mounting bills from his stay at St. Michael’s Hospital.
When Herrera entered the ring against Shakeel Phinn during a fundraising gala benefitting the Shaw Festival on April 12, he thought health insurance had been purchased for him.
It hadn’t, and so Herrera’s case raises a troubling question about fighter safety. When a pro fighter suffers a serious injury while competing in Ontario, who’s responsible for his or her health care?
Unlike several U.S. bodies regulating combat sports, the Ontario Athletics Commission doesn’t require promoters to insure individual fighters.
The Shaw Festival outsources the boxing logistics of its annual show and says it didn’t realize pro boxing had so few builtin safeguards.
St. Michael’s expects the bedridden Herrera to pay for his own treatment. Friends have established a crowdfunding page, but if Herrera can’t cover it, taxpayers might have to.
“It’s stressful,” says Herrera, a married father of two boys. “I only earn about $100 a week in Mexico. I don’t know.”
The Ontario Athletics Commission, which regulates professional fighting, touts its safety record — commissioner Ken Hayashi regularly vetoes mismatched bouts — but Herrera’s injury highlights serious fighter protection issues.
Ontario’s Athletics Control Act requires promoters to purchase liability insurance worth at least $2 million covering “possible injury sustained by members of the public or officials or property damage,” but not the fighters themselves.
While Hayashi refused interview requests, an email from a commission spokesperson says other Canadian jurisdictions don’t have mandatory insurance for fighters.
California law requires promoters to take out short-term health insurance on every competitor on a pro fight card. New York State also obligates promoters to insure licensed pro boxers and wrestlers.
For local amateur boxers, paying a membership fee to Boxing Ontario provides insurance at all events sanctioned by that organization. Promoters are free to insure fighters themselves — the Ultimate Fighting Championship provides health insurance for all its athletes.
Earlier this month the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport assumed oversight of the commission. Minister Michael Coteau’s office didn’t respond to calls and emails seeking comment on insurance.
For his part, Herrera had assumed the travel insurance that came with his plane ticket would cover his health care. Event matchmaker Jim Gentle says insurance is the fighter’s responsibility.
“There’s no provision that a fighter has to bring their own insurance,” he says. “It’s a personal decision on behalf of the athlete.”
And the Shaw Festival assumed the rules would ensure performers had coverage. Executive director Tim Jennings says he’s willing to build insurance into fighters’ purses for next year’s show: “It’s a bit of a concern to me that anybody would enter this kind of thing without a clear sense of the insurance. I’m not blaming anyone . . . I would have assumed more of a relationship between the commission and the boxers.”
Since 1986, the annual event has raised nearly $10 million for the theatre festival, and its generous paydays make it a destination event for fighters from Ontario and abroad.
Herrera says his eight-round fight at the Shaw event paid him $4,000, quadruple the payout for a similar bout in Mexico.
Midway through the eighth round Phinn had already dropped Herrera twice, when Herrera took a knee and the referee stopped the fight. Herrera walked to his corner, sat on his stool and answered questions from his seconds, then lost consciousness.
Cornerman Noel Mejía contemplated slapping Herrera to see if he would wake up, but Rey Morales — also in the corner — stopped him. Instead, the two sought medical help. “I was scared,” Mejía says. “Rey yelled for the doctor and the doctor wasn’t there.”
Morales and Mejía say they waited five to 10 minutes for a doctor to arrive while Herrera lay unconscious. A spokesperson for the commission confirmed by email that the two commission doctors followed protocol in heading to the dressing rooms when Herrera didn’t appear injured immediately post-fight.
Morales, a local coach and adviser who often corners fighters brought in from Mexico, says boxers who suffer knockouts are often examined by doctors right after the final bell. He wonders why it didn’t happen this time: “Boxers assume a risk, but it all depends. You know you might get hurt, but you know there’s going to be a doctor right there. If they tell you there might not be a doctor right there, you might think twice about the risk you’re assuming.”
Morales says a doctor hurried back to assess Herrera, and quickly ordered him sent to St. Michael’s. Tests revealed a broken blood vessel in his brain, says Morales, a Mexico City native who has been serving as Herrera’s translator and aide.
While Herrera speaks clearly and can use his arms, his left leg remains weak and he leaves his bed only when hospital staff arrive to bathe him or take him on short walks in the hallway. He says he doesn’t need surgery and that his recovery is a question of time, but Herrera isn’t sure when he’ll be strong enough to leave the hospital.
Jennings says the Shaw Festival will cover Herrera’s medical tests, as well as a hotel room for Mejia, who remains in Toronto to help. But St. Michael’s expects the fighter to bear the cost of his hospital stay. Herrera likely won’t know the full tally until he leaves the hospital.
And he says he hadn’t realized he was fighting at his own risk.
“We go into the ring not knowing if we’ll come out in good shape,” Herrera says. “There should be insurance because we’re risking our lives. We’re human beings. We’re not animals.”