I lost six pints of blood, I’m lucky to be alive
SPRINT ACE ELLINGTON ON HIS HORROR MOTORBIKE CRASH
JAMES ELLINGTON rolls up the tracksuit bottoms on his right leg to bare a jagged scar on his shin measuring five inches.
Both legs and his forehead are etched with reminders of a motorbike accident 11 weeks ago that threatened to end not only his running career and that of team-mate Nigel Levine, but also their lives.
The surface wounds are healing quickly and he is defying the most optimistic prognosis by shuffling around London on crutches.
He finds it a form of therapy casting his mind back to a mountainside in Tenerife, talking of the crash and what followed.
‘I haven’t spoken to anyone professionally about the mental trauma,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I’m ready yet, I’m just focusing on my physical recovery.’
At 31, Ellington is one of the oldest members of the 4 x 100m relay team tipped for a medal at the World Championships this summer in London. But he was experiencing a late flush, having set a 100m personal best of 10.04sec last season and run a wind-assisted 9.96sec to qualify for the Rio Olympics.
‘I was in great shape,’ he says. ‘Nigel and I were sharing a room and we kept talking about going up to see the volcano. We hired a bike and stayed there for two or three hours. It was the most beautiful, serene place I’ve been.
‘I’d been thinking I shouldn’t be on the back of a motorbike but we weren’t doing anything silly or tearing around and Nigel rides a bike back home. We were heading down and the next thing I know I saw headlights and heard the loudest bang.’
It is alleged a tourist was driving on the wrong side of the road.
‘I landed a few feet from the cliff edge. I lifted my head and I couldn’t breathe because my helmet was filled with so much blood. I managed to rip the strap off around my chin and I reached for my head. The skin had flapped back so I was feeling my skull.
‘The impact was so hard my tracksuit and trainers had disappeared, my clothes had exploded off like I’d been in a bomb.
‘I was just in my pants. I was talking to Nigel and told him my right leg was gone because it was in pieces. Because of the pain in my right leg I didn’t realise I’d fractured my right ankle. I was on the mountainside for about 40 minutes before the ambulance came, during which time I lost six and a half pints of blood and wondered whether I’d survive.’
Incredibly, Ellington’s phone in his pocket was unscathed. He rang team-mate Danny Talbot to report their injuries.
‘We play a lot of pranks so I had to send him a picture to show him I wasn’t joking,’ says Ellington reaching for an image of himself in a neck brace, face covered in blood, right eye swollen shut.
He spent five days in intensive care in Tenerife before being flown back to the UK, where two surgeons operated on him, with the primary aim to save his leg but also to give him the best possible chance of returning to elite athletics.
‘Nigel and I both broke our pelvises,’ he says. ‘One of my surgeons explained he sees these injuries on male bike riders because they take the impact of the petrol tank at the front of the bike. Nigel hit it first and milliseconds later I hit it. Four weeks later I had the pelvis operation and it was bare, I’d completely sheared my abductor muscles.’
Initially Ellington was in a wheelchair, which gave him a new perspective on life.
‘I went to an event and you feel like you’re in everybody’s way and people are looking at you. I saw a wheelchair rugby player and told him what had happened and he said, “You’ll be fine, you’re going to get out of this chair”. You realise how fortunate you are.’
Ellington has defied the odds before. In 2012, when his funding was cut, he raised sponsorship cash on ebay. He realises this is a much starker challenge.
‘In 2004 I tore my hamstring seven weeks before the World Juniors. Everyone thought I was out but I went to the Nationals to qualify and came second. At the Worlds I made the final.’
Ellington admits living 15 miles from the London Stadium where the World Championships take place this summer will test his resolve. He hopes to be there in some capacity, and as he leaves in a black cab, he leans out of the window and says: ‘Hopefully see you on the track next year.’
It would be an incredible feat.