Column: Safety first, right?!
Safety first, right?! You would think that in a sport like ours. A sport where injuries are common. And we are talking about more serious injuries, not about a sprained ankle, a painful poop or a wicked sole like in other sports. No, in recent times we have unfortunately seen stories in motocross such as that of Axel Alletru but also that of Joel Roelants. In addition, many also know what happened to Mika Musquin, who recently broke his very upper cervical vertebra and became paralyzed as a result. In addition, we all know someone who has had a damn good or bad luck, whatever the case may be, crashing in recent months or years...
Yet some federations and organizers still do not seem to realize that they are not organizing a friend party monopoly. For example, I would like to inform you about an incident recently during the MCLB match in Overslag. A young man suffered a serious crash during training on Sunday morning, resulting in a long list of injuries. These injuries included a severe concussion, bleeding in the brain, broken ribs that caused a perforated lung. He also suffered a broken collarbone. Nothing special were it not that after the crash it was established by the pilot's sympathizers that there was no doctor present. This was apparently only foreseen from the first round, just as much as flag men and flag women. These were also not yet available for the training. It was therefore immediately possible to make do after the crash.
Without a doubt, family, friends and the pilot himself were in agony and there was no doctor. There was no doctor present to assess the situation, immediately call the right services and at the same time tell the person present whether or not everything will be fine. No, for whatever reason it was decided that safety is of secondary importance during (time) training. That their pilots may then be left for dead, and apparently may also be run over. This incident hopefully raises the question in your mind whether you still think it is appropriate to practice our dangerous sport with a federation that does not care one bit about your safety. Hopefully you remember that motocross is dangerous enough without compromising safety for any reason.
Text: Matthias Van Eeckhoven – Archive Photo: Damon D'Hanis
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