Champ Car: Cristiano DaMatta Seriously Hurt

Get Well Shorty!

Da Matta Saved by Quick Response
Written by: Robin Miller Indianapolis, Ind. – 8/6/2006


Quick response and excellent treatment gave Cristiano da Matta every chance to survive his freakish accident last week at Elkhart Lake and, thankfully, the 2002 CART champion is going to live.

But how soon the 32-year-old Brazilian recovers from his severe head injury and to what extent is impossible to predict, according to Dr. Chris Pinderski and Dr. Steve Olvey.

"Everybody did a great job, from our safety team to the surgeon in Wisconsin (Randall Johnson) and Cristiano's conditions has stabilized so now he's in the recovery phase," said Pinderski, the medical director for Champ Car who intubated da Matta before he was placed in the helicopter for his emergency trip to Theda Clark Medical Center in Neenah, Wis.

"But now we've got him completely sedated and we're allowing the brain to reset itself so it's going to be several days before we know much more."

Da Matta was testing at Road America and running approximately 100 mph when a deer jumped into the path of his car and caromed into the cockpit. That contact created violent accelerations to the brain. It caused the brain to bleed and swell and required immediate surgery to alleviate the pressure.

"Cristiano suffered an acute subdural hematoma and if there had been any delay in getting him into surgery he probably wouldn't have made it," said Olvey, a critical care specialist and director of Neuro Science at the University of Miami, who along with Dr. Terry Trammell, revolutionized safety in auto racing during the 1980s and 1990s.

"The prognosis is much improved with surgery in four to six hours like he was able to receive."

It's a scenario similar to what happened to Roberto Guerrero in 1987. While tire testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a suspension failure sent him into the second-turn wall and his right front tire came back and caught Guerrero in the head. Initially, the prognosis looked bleak.

"Roberto was in a coma for three weeks," said Olvey, whose radical steroid treatments were credited with reducing the swelling and saving the Colombian driver's life. "But when he finally woke up he recognized his wife and everybody else in his life. Two months later he was driving a passenger car and a month after that he was playing golf. Six months after his accident he almost won the CART race at Phoenix.

"Obviously, it was a remarkable recovery. All head injuries are different and right now it's just one of those wait and see situations.

"But it's not hopeless."