Photo: Sebastiaan Roozendaal / Dutch Photo Agency
Adam Fitzgerald, who was involved in the Formula Regional European Championship crash at Spa-Francorchamps last month that killed Dilano van’t Hoff, has reached a new landmark in his injury recovery.
Fitzgerald’s Race Performance Motorsport car struck that of van’t Hoff at high speed in wet conditions and he was hospitalised with four broken verterbrae in his lower back, a break where the sternum and collarbone meet, a broken elbow as well as bruising to his other elbow and one of his heels.
That occurred little over two months after his FREC debut at Imola where he launched over a sausage kerb and the landing broke three verterbrae in his upper back as well as destroying his chassis. Despite that, he was able to finish the race and only missed one before returning to the cockpit. His Spa crash on July 1 however has ruled him out for the rest of the year.
Fitzgerald provided his first update about his latest injury recovery 11 days after his Spa crash, while still in hospital and waiting to find out if he would need surgery on his broken elbow.
That surgery did take place, and in his next update six days later he revealed he had now exited hospital but would spend “the next few months” wearing a back brace.
Last week he said he was “working hard on rehab, I’m still missing a lot of movement in the elbow but getting better each day; it looks like the elbow will take the longest to heal so still not sure when I’ll be fit to drive again”.
The latest update came yesterday, with Fitzgerald reaching a milestone in his injury rehabilitation.
“Back to light training now after eight weeks of not being able to do any exercise, time to get back in shape. After breaking my sternum, my elbow and four vertebrae, it’s really surprising that I’m able to move around freely only two months later.
“It’s amazing how fast the body recovers, for the first two weeks, I couldn’t even turn on my side when lying in bed and now I’m walking.”