NASCAR driver Ryan Newman said on a Zoom call Thursday with reporters that doctors put him in a medically induced coma while being treated after he was in a horrific crash on the last lap of the 2020 Daytona 500 in February.
Newman also said they put a PICC line — or a peripherally inserted central catheter — in his shoulder, but that was the extent of his medical procedures. He said there were “multiple miracles – big miracles and little miracles, in my opinion – that aligned” for him to be able to walk out of the hospital less than 48 hours after the wreck.
Not a week after the wreck, the 42-year-old driver released a statement through his team, Roush Fenway Racing, saying that he was being treated for a head injury but he didn’t suffer any internal organ damage or broken bones.
On the call with reporters Thursday, he added that while some doctors diagnosed him with a concussion, they were not in agreement about it. And that’s led him to more casually describe his injury as a “bruised brain.”
Here is the final lap of the Daytona 500 in which Ryan Newman's car was flipped at the line.
We will continue to keep you updated on his status as we learn more. pic.twitter.com/qkEwQBpoP0
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 18, 2020
About his medical situation at the time, the 19-year NASCAR veteran explained Thursday:
“They were trying to keep me in a somewhat of a medically-induced coma, from what I’ve been told, and that medicine kind of zoned me out. So I really don’t have any memories or recollection of any of my crash until I actually had my arms around my daughters walking out of the hospital. Again, when they give you those medicines and you’re knocked out, you don’t know what’s going on. I was able to walk out in the condition that I was and as I watched in the next, call it 24 hours, as I watched the crash and had to make myself believe what I had went through, I really looked to my dad to say, ‘Hey, did this really happen?’ …
“I was just treated so that I could be calm so that they would kind of numb my brain, so to speak, so that I could just sit there and rest. I wouldn’t call it a vegetative state, but I wasn’t a fruit either. I was meant to be relaxed.”
On the final lap of NASCAR’s season-opener, Newman was out front but in a three-way battle for the win with Ryan Blaney, who was right behind him, and eventual winner Denny Hamlin, who was on the outside of the track. Blaney made contact with the back of Newman’s car, saying after the race that their “bumpers hooked up wrong.”
The No. 6 Ford then slammed into the wall, was plowed into by Corey LaJoie from behind, went airborne and eventually landed upside down before sliding off the Daytona International Speedway track as flames and sparks shot out of it. After safety crews got Newman out of the car, an ambulance took him to a nearby Daytona Beach hospital, and Roush said he was in “serious condition.” He was released less than 48 hours later.
Newman attributed his survival and recovery NASCAR’s safety developments, as well as his helmet. He tried to detail what exactly happened inside his car during and with emergency crews after the crash, and he said he was “kind of hung upside-down in the car” and was “fighting the medical crew” trying to get him out of it.
However, that’s still what he’s been told. Newman said he doesn’t remember the crash, his time in the hospital or the majority of the race — which he noted could be because of his head injury or the medication doctors put him on.
About the crash and what was going on inside the cockpit, Newman said Thursday:
“I don’t have anything that is conclusive that says that [LaJoie’s] car hit my helmet. I do know that parts of the inside of my car hit my helmet and crushed it, so to speak. I don’t have any defined video that I can give you [a] 100 percent answer that says this is exactly the second that this happened. But I see the end result and that my helmet did have contact, my HANS [device] did have contact, and I was being moved backwards in my seat as [LaJoie’s] car was moving me forward.
“So I can’t honestly tell you what percentage of that inertia and those physics that went into the actual action of the crash were being driven by his car hitting me or his car hitting my roll bars. It’s not a fair assessment to say, but everything happened really quick and everything was all in that compartment, basically, and I guess it would be like a case of high-quality whiplash that kind of happened when I was hit.”
Roush Fenway Racing announced on April 27 that Newman was medically cleared to compete again.
And because the COVID-19 outbreak halted the NASCAR season for 10 weeks, he actually only missed three races and was temporarily replaced by Ross Chastain. NASCAR also granted him a waiver allowing him to be eligible for the 2020 Cup Series playoffs and championship.
Newman’s first race since the Daytona 500 will be Sunday’s Real Heroes 400 at Darlington Raceway. It’s also the first in NASCAR’s return to the track after missing eight races amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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