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Farquhar on the NW200 Crash: Whoever Prepared Me for the Journey Saved My Life

This year's North West 200 race was plagued by several violent crashes involving highly experienced riders, and by the death of 20-year-old Malachi Mitchell-Thomas, who lost his life in the second Supertwins race last Saturday.
Farquhar and Cooper crash together 1 photo
Photo: BBC
Ryan Farquhar and Dan Cooper have been involved in a spectacularly brutal crash that occurred at high speed at the Black Hill during the NW200. Farquhar, 40, was treated at the roadside by Dr. Fred MacSorley and the medical team on site, and it looks like their intervention was crucial.

"I remember crashing and the marshals telling me not to move until Dr. Fred MacSorley got there," Farquhar remembers. "When I got to hospital they told me that whoever prepared me for the journey had saved my life," adds the North Ireland-based racer. Farquhar recalls "having lost the front end and going down hard. I hit the Recticel bale and bounced back out into the road but everything happened so fast that I don't really remember being hit by the other bike. I can't thank the doctors enough who saved my life - money couldn't pay them for what they have done for me. I was taken straight into surgery when I arrived at the Royal Victoria Hospital and I was lucky that the top liver surgeon in the country was available to operate on me," as the five-time NW200 winner told the BBC.

A police helicopter airlifted Ryan Farquhar to Belfast, with six broken ribs and a lacerated liver. Dan Cooper, whose bike smashed into Farquhar suffered non-life threatening injuries.

Farquhar retired from road racing in 2012, after his uncle Trevor Ferguson was killed the same year in a crash at the Manx GP in the Isle of Man. However, Ryan was unable to stay away from the bikes and returned to racing in 2014, with full family support.

In mid-March, Farquhar was announced as the replacement rider of Guy Martin in team TAS Racing. He would ride the Tyco BMW S1000RR Martin was supposed to use in the Isle of Man 2016, but it looks like TAS will be forced to find yet another rider for the job.

Farquhar and Cooper crash together
Police chopper airlifting Farquhar
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