Magomed Abdusalamov started talking to his relatives. Boxer Magomed Abdusalamov, who suffered serious injuries, began to talk with relatives

We bring to your attention a translation of a short article famous writer Thomas Houser dedicated to former heavyweight boxer Magomed Abdusalamov.

On November 2, 2013, Russian heavyweight contender Magomed Abdusalamov suffered severe brain damage in a fight with Mike Perez at Madison Square Garden in New York.

People with injuries like Magomed's are usually out of sight. They disappear into the shadows. We sometimes get positive reviews about their condition like “he is in the clinic” and “on the mend”, etc. None of us are immune from this. None of us is promised a life that will prove immune to terrible suffering.

Magomed fought to provide for his family. And he did succeed. Last year, New York State, which was in charge of hosting bouts on its territory, agreed to pay Abdusalamov and his family $22 million after nearly four years of litigation over New York State's substandard medical protocols and their implementation.

Part of the $22 million went to lawyers. Magomed's wife, Bakanai, received a lump sum payment. The bulk of this money will be given out in annuities, which will be Magomed's income for the next thirty years. If he dies before this period ends, the $2 million will return to New York State and the remainder of the annuity will become Magomed's property. All of his medical expenses and related bills are paid from an annuity that is overseen by Charles Thomas, a former Queens County Judge.

Magomed and Bakanay live in Greenwich with their three daughters, who are now 11, 8 and 4 years old. Greenwich is part of the "Gold Coast" of Connecticut, home to large fund managers and other members of the financial elite. But there are also several less expensive areas in the city. The Abdusalamovs live in a modest house surrounded by asphalt and gravel on a small piece of land with no lawn or garden.

Every morning Bakanai bathes and shaves Magomed and dresses him in clean clothes. Three days a week she takes him to Stamford Hospital for physical therapy. It is not intended to improve his condition - only minor physical or cognitive improvements are expected - but mostly to prevent further atrophy of Magomed's muscles.

The right side of Magomed's body is completely paralyzed. On the right side of the head, there is a scar shaped and the size of a horseshoe. He can control his left hand to a certain extent, and the left side of the body. He gets tired quickly and suffers from convulsions. He cannot walk or control his physical functions. He has a high risk of choking, so anything that enters his mouth is carefully controlled.

His voice is weak. He tries to speak, sometimes in English and sometimes in Russian. Often what he says is incomprehensible. IN best case only a few words come out at a time. Sometimes they fit the situation. In other cases they are not suitable.

He can follow simple commands like "take my hand".

Magomed knows that he is ill. The extent to which he understands his condition is uncertain. He responds to kindness. He recognizes familiar faces, his wife and children, and knows that they are the objects of his affection. His strongest connection is with Bakanai. When asked if he knows who she is, he replies, "Big love."

His mind is wandering. Almost always, his gaze is blank.

He will never be able to take care of himself again.

But he is still Mago.

New York State paid $22 million in compensation for medical error the family of Russian boxer Magomed Abdusalamov, whose sports career and full life ended in 2013 after a fight with Cuban Mike Perez. Cash were transferred to the family, and not personally to Abdusalamov, because he himself is unlikely to ever be able to manage this money: in that fight, the boxer received a serious head injury, due to which he remained paralyzed on the right side of the disabled person.

Blame for this was the criminal negligence of the doctors appointed by the state of New York to fight. At the end of the fight, the athlete clearly felt unwell, but the doctors considered his injuries minor and did not pay enough attention to him to detect a blood clot (a blood clot in a vessel) that formed in the brain after one of Perez's blows. A few hours later, Abdusalamov began to complain of severe pain in his head, and only after that he was hospitalized, correctly diagnosed and put into an artificial coma to avoid brain damage from a blood clot.

But it was too late - the athlete was struck by a stroke. Since then, the Dagestani fighter has been unable to move independently, hardly speaks, and, according to doctors' forecasts, he will have to spend the rest of his life in this state.

In February 2014, the boxer's wife, Bakanay, sued the state of New York and the local sports commission, demanding compensation in the amount of $100 million for the negligence of doctors who did not stop the fight on time, or at least did not immediately hospitalize Abdusalamov at its end. And now, after almost three years, the claim was nevertheless satisfied, albeit with a sum reduced by almost five times. But in any case, this is the largest compensation paid by the State of New York to an individual.

After winning in court, Abdusalamov's wife emphasized that she would now be able to take care of her husband on her own, without relying on outside financial assistance.

“For some time I was depressed, because I always thought that by this time Mago (nickname of Abdusalamov - "Gazeta.Ru") will already get better and we will live again as before ... but now I realize that, although we cannot return Mago to ordinary life, winning in court will help us make his life and the life of our entire family better. Now we can provide him with even better treatment and not depend on other people, ”Bakanai Abdusalamova is quoted as saying by ESPN.

Previously, boxers Sergey Kovalev, Ruslan Provodnikov, well-known promoter Andrey Ryabinsky and many other personalities from the boxing world helped financially the family of a paralyzed boxer, since Abdusalamov's treatment costs $ 20-30 thousand per month.

But everything could have been different: in 2013, the career of a heavyweight fighter (over 91 kg) went uphill, he defeated 18 rivals in a row without suffering a single defeat, and in all cases he won by knockout either in the first round or in others. early rounds.

At the last boxing evening for Abdusalamov, his fight for the WBC USNBC heavyweight title against the previously undefeated Perez was considered the second most important after the confrontation between Gennady Golovkin and Curtis Stevens. The fatal duel took place at the 21,000-seat arena of the Madison Square Garden Theater, where boxers from all over the world dream of fighting.

For ten rounds of a stubborn and equal fight, the rivals constantly exchanged powerful blows. The Cuban turned out to be a very serious opponent and did not let himself be crushed from the first minutes, even breaking Abdusalamov's left cheekbone, which began to swell rapidly. Finally, the fight ended, the judges unanimously gave the victory to Peres, and Abdusalamov, contrary to his usual habit, immediately sat down to rest.

“I knew right away that something had gone wrong. I know my magician. He does not sit down after the round when he feels good, he was even interviewed about it. And then he immediately sat down.

At the same time, they showed his face - his eyes looked somehow lost, ”Sports.ru quotes the boxer’s wife.

How did this tragic story further, is already known, but how it will end is not yet clear. According to doctors, Abdusalamov will need medical care for the rest of his life, since he will never be able to fully recover from a stroke and will suffer from neurological deficits - impaired motor activity, speech and thought process. However, his wife does not give up, and, perhaps, the monetary compensation received will contribute at least a little progress in the recovery process of Abdusalamov, who was once considered one of the most promising boxers in Russia.

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In the fall of 2013, boxer Magomed Abdusalamov miraculously escaped death due to an injury sustained in the ring. His wife, Bakanai Abdusalamova, told Roman Moon how she lifts her husband to his feet.

Magomed Abdusalamov became famous in 2005, becoming the heavyweight champion of Russia in the amateur ring. Not getting to the Olympics in Beijing, he went professional. Over the next five years, the boxer spent 17 fights and won everything ahead of schedule. He fought very spectacularly, often taking risks and completely forgetting about defense.

At the beginning of 2013, Magomed climbed to fourth place in the WBC rankings and began to be considered as a contender for a fight against world champion Vitali Klitschko. His new opponent was the Cuban Mike Perez.

In a fight with Peres, Abdusalamov suffered his first defeat in the professional ring. Magomed received fractures of his left arm, nose, facial bone and a craniocerebral injury, which resulted in cerebral edema and a blood clot. A few hours later, Abdusalamov was put into an artificial coma. A few days later, he suffered a stroke. It was reported that the boxer has almost no chance of survival, but he is alive and has already begun to speak.

Magomed Abdusalamov lives and recovers in the USA with his family. His treatment costs 20-30 thousand dollars a month, he was helped by promoter Andrei Ryabinsky, boxers Sergey Kovalev, Ruslan Provodnikov and others. Roman Moon called Bakanai Abdusalamova in New York and found out how her husband was coming back to life.

“I knew right away that something had gone wrong. I know my magician. He does not sit down after the round when he feels good, he was even interviewed about it. And then he immediately sat down. At the same time they showed his face - his eyes looked somehow lost. In general, everything was different that day. My 10-month-old daughter was crying and acting up. They say that children feel everything.

Even at a regular job, you don't know what will happen tomorrow. You can go outside and get hit by a car. But, of course, I was afraid for him. Once, when he was knocked down, I thought: “That's it, let's quit boxing. We don't need boxing anymore." I was in a position then, I cried a lot. But he would still be boxing. He had a goal of becoming a world champion. He had fans, all for them. He said he couldn't let them down.

He seemed to feel well. I constantly asked him after the fights: “Does your head hurt?” He said: nothing hurts, everything is fine. If I had known that this would happen to him, then I would have closed one in the cave.

But I can't say anything about this. All through a lawyer.

I remember when he was in intensive care, we were not allowed to do anything, even touch him. He was all swollen. Around the ice, under him a blanket of ice, he himself is ice. All this was necessary, because he had a fever after the operation.

I looked at him and did not believe that this was my Magician. Everything was like a dream. So many tubes, so many drips on him. I did not understand how this could happen to my strong and handsome Magomed. I went to his hospital on the highway, which he had not allowed me to drive before. But I had to. An hour there, an hour back.

Two months later, we were transferred to a rehabilitation center. There were fewer tubes, but he still didn't move. I remember what the ward was like: he lies and three others. She showed him different colored papers, said: look at red, yellow, green. I wanted to understand if he was thinking, because the doctor said: he can’t think now, he has a damaged place that is responsible for thinking. I ask Magomed: how much is two plus two? Three plus one? He answers, moves his fingers, barely, but shows. I show him to the doctor, I say: “You see, but you said that he cannot think.” The doctor is surprised: “I can’t say anything.”

He didn't open his eyes well. Opened one, the second does not open. As it turned out, he had fluid in his brain and head. When he opened his eyes, it certainly was joy. When he first said something quietly to me, I danced around his bed for joy. He looks at me and seems to show: what is the matter with you, crazy, or what?

We seem to have been discharged in September 2014, I took him home. Then it turned out that in the first hospital, where he was in intensive care, bedsores were allowed on the coccyx. He was treated for a long time, then in November he had an operation. Inside the infection - another two months lay in the hospital. We have already been told that he almost has sepsis in his blood. Nearly went down with a heart attack. Then she told him at home: "That's it, Magician, that's enough already."

In November-December last year, he became worse. The good thing is that when you call 911, they arrive in one minute. His pressure dropped, some kind of infection, he was in intensive care, just no. I sat, sobbed and thought: “We pulled you out, why again?”. But we got through that too.

Now the children have holidays at school, and usually my day starts at seven. I send the children to school with breakfasts, then I start to feed him, wash and shave. As a deputy of the People's Assembly, I should have him, shaved every day. I dress him, then the procedures, then to the rehabilitation center. There he is engaged, somewhere in an hour he gets tired, we go home for dinner.

At 4 o'clock we have medicines. When the weather is good outside, we go out with the children to the park for a walk. I turn on the music, the children dance, he smiles, he likes to look at the children. Dinner and sleep in the evening.

I set alarms at night because I have to turn it every two or three hours to prevent bed sores.

We live in the house of a friend of Magomed, Amin Suleymanov. He helps me lift Magomed out of bed and put him in the bathroom. He put him in the car in his arms, helped to carry him to the rehabilitation center. The nurse sometimes comes, but without his help I could not have done it. I couldn't even speak English at the time.

Right now, Magomed is lying on the sofa in the hall, the children are lying on another sofa and watching a movie. He can already hug, smile. But his right side of the body does not work at all: neither arm nor leg. Even when he smiles, it is only on one side. The left side works, but he cannot, for example, stand up by himself. He can't even sit on his own yet, I hold him. When we talk, he speaks very quietly. Others do not hear, but I understand him, I'm used to it. We started eating quite recently, and before that he had a tube in his stomach, he was poured liquid food into it. He couldn't drink either.

I remember how I dreamed that he would open his eyes, that he would move his finger. He could not do anything then, but now he is conscious, I constantly whisper something to him, the children run around him, he smiles. For his situation, this is already a big step forward. The hardest part, of course, is over. But ahead big job. I want him to get up and walk.

In America, when he first entered the hospital, we ran after the doctors, asked what would happen, but they could not even say whether he would still be alive. They didn't want to take responsibility. Only one doctor said: "Be patient, wait, he is young, strong." Also uncertain, but at least a little supported us. Another doctor recently told me, "To be honest, he won't walk." I say: "Let's remember that he was not supposed to live."

I’m asking another doctor the other day: “When do you think he will move?” He says, "Let me show you a picture of his brain." He showed that his left side was damaged, there are gaps where the brain died, there is liquid. There is another zone, everything is dark there, the doctor said: “Let's hope that it will brighten up and something will change.” I say: “Let's look not at the picture, but at him. A month ago and now - see the difference? Doctor: "Yes, I see a difference, he looks better." I say: “Then turn off your picture. Let's look at him."

Photo: Gettyimages.ru/Al Bello (1); personal archive of Bakanai Abdusalamova

As the wife of the boxer Bakanay Abdusalamova said, Magomed understands literally everything, recognizes relatives and friends, tries to speak. Magomed has a good command of his left hand, constantly doing exercises - squeezing a rubber ball, pulling an expander, throwing and catching the ball. The right hand reacts to stimuli, but only the fingers move, and the hand itself is still motionless. The same situation is with the right leg. But Magomed even tries to write with his left hand, although this is not easy for him. The fact is that despite the fact that Magomed is left-handed, before the injury he wrote with his right hand. Magomed loves to hug children and his wife, sends them kisses.
Magomed pays special attention to his youngest daughter: he calls her to him, hugs her, touches her cheek, does not let her go. Magomed is able to distinguish colors, do arithmetic operations in his mind. The swallowing reflex Lately also improved significantly. So far, doctors allow Magomed's relatives to give him only pieces of ice, but the health workers themselves have already begun to feed him ice cream, yogurt and fruit juice, and Magomed himself is able to hold a spoon in his hand and bring it to his mouth. When the swallowing reflex is restored to the proper extent, doctors will completely refuse to feed through the tube.
Health professionals say that progress in the swallowing reflex is directly related to progress in possession speech apparatus: When swallowing improves, speech improves. In fact, this is how it happens, because. Magomed has recently begun to pronounce more words, and almost every day the stock of spoken words is expanding.

“Today, when I was leaving home, I asked Magomed what he would like to tell me,” says Bakanai. - He told me “happily”, and then paused and added “drive carefully”. He speaks quietly, but I'm already used to it and understand him very well. Recently, Magomed also feels when he needs to go to the toilet and lets you know about it.

Recall that on November 2, 2013, Magomed Abdusalamov, who at the time of the fight with Peres was ranked fourth in the WBC rating, during the fight received fractures of his left arm, nose, facial bone and a craniocerebral injury, which caused brain swelling and a blood clot.
During the surgical operation to extract the blood clot, part of the boxer's skull was removed to reduce the pressure of the swollen brain on the skull, but unfortunately, by that time, multiple cerebral hemorrhage had already occurred, aggravating the already serious condition boxer.

After the operation, the doctors put Magomed into a medically induced coma and gave him almost no chance of survival.
Magomed could not breathe on his own, was connected to an artificial life support apparatus and long time was in a coma.
After the doctors managed to "wake up" Magomed, his condition began to slowly improve. Periods of improvement alternated with periods of crisis, but after progress became apparent, the doctors transferred Magomed to a specialized rehabilitation center for patients with brain injuries. After that, Magomed underwent an operation to reconstruct the cranium and several other operations. Since then general state boxer is constantly improving.
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Professional athletes are always at risk of serious injuries that can leave them disabled for the rest of their lives or even kill them. A few examples of such cases that broke the lives of famous athletes are waiting for you further. Attention, this post contains pictures that we do not recommend viewing for too impressionable people.

Elena Mukhina. The gymnast, the leader of the USSR national team, was predicted to be the champion of the Moscow Olympics, but a terrible injury received a few weeks before the competition in training radically changed her life.

Elena's coach was Mikhail Klimenko. He began to train her from the age of 14, before that he worked only with men, and decided that a specially created the most difficult program.

Three years later, Elena became the second in the all-around at the USSR Championship and won three gold medals at the European Championship. IN next year she won the overall standings of the national championship and won three gold medals at the world championship in Strasbourg.

The first serious injury overtook her in 1975 during the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR in Leningrad. The detachment of the spinous processes of the cervical vertebrae was the result of an unsuccessful landing. Mukhina was admitted to the hospital: the athlete could not turn her neck.

But every day, after a medical round, Klimenko took the gymnast to the gym, where he removed the orthopedic collar so that Lena would train there until the evening. Even then, the athlete felt how her legs began to go numb; She recognized the feeling of weakness that later became familiar to her.

Despite this, the athlete did not give up the performance, and at demonstration performances in the fall of 1979 in England she broke her leg. She spent a month and a half in a cast, after which it turned out that the bones had parted.

The cast was put on again, but the coach did not wait for recovery and sent Mukhina to train in the gym on one healthy leg.

Complicating Mukhina's program in anticipation of Olympic Games, Klimenko included in it a new element in floor exercises: after a flask and a most difficult jump (one and a half somersaults with a turn of 540 degrees), the landing was to take place head down into a somersault.

This element was called "Thomas somersault" and was taken from men's gymnastics. Mukhina recalled that she repeatedly told the coach that she lacked speed and height, and she literally risked breaking her neck. Klimenko, on the other hand, believed that the new element was not dangerous.

“I saw my fall several times in a dream,” Mukhina recalled. “I saw how they carried me out of the hall. I understood that sooner or later this would really happen. I felt like an animal being driven with a whip along an endless corridor. But again and again I came to the hall. Probably, this is fate. But they are not offended by fate. "

It is believed that Klimenko, when leaving, forbade Mukhina to independently train Thomas somersaults on the platform, only in a foam pit, however, the girl nevertheless decided to complete the program in full, including a new element.

“On that day, Lena didn’t feel well, but the coach insisted that she do a run, show the entire program with maximum difficulty in floor exercises,” said former gymnast Lidia Ivanova. “In one of the difficult jumps, when Lena had already gone into the air and started twist, she either relaxed, or let her injured ankle down: Mukhina did not twist and hit the carpet with all her might.

In Minsk, for some reason, they could not operate on the gymnast immediately after her fall, although immediate surgical intervention could greatly alleviate Mukhina's situation, she was transported to Moscow.

After the first operation, others followed, but they did not bring visible results. The gymnast remained almost completely paralyzed: she could not stand, sit, and even simply eat.

“After all these countless operations, I decided that if I want to live, then I need to run away from hospitals. Then I realized that I need to radically change my attitude to life. Do not envy others, but learn to enjoy what is available to me. I realized that the commandments “do not think badly”, “do not act badly”, “do not envy” are not just words,” Elena said.

The gymnast could not forget her coach, who remained in her memory closely associated with the nightmare of the past. When the athlete learned that Klimenko, who had left for Italy with his family shortly after the tragedy, returned to Moscow, her condition deteriorated sharply. Mukhina categorically refused to meet with him.

Clint Malarchuk. On March 22, 1989, the Buffalo Sabers goaltender was standing in goal as usual during a game with the St. Louis Blues when Steve Tuttle and Uwe Krupp flew into him, colliding a second earlier.

Tuttle accidentally injured Malarchuk's jugular vein with a skate blade: a fountain of blood poured onto the ice, plunging the stadium into a state of shock.

Many of Malarchuk's teammates vomited, and the audience began to faint. In a few seconds, the hockey player lost almost a liter of blood, and then lost the same amount on the way to the hospital,

Physiotherapist Jim Pizzutelli was able to stop the bleeding by squeezing a vein and handing the hockey player over to the doctors. Surgeons managed to save Clint's life by giving him over 300 stitches.

After an injury, Clint Malarchuk left his sports career and became a children's coach, but he experienced terrible psychological problems and tried to commit suicide twice, but miraculously he managed to survive clinical death from poisoning and escape with a couple of scars after attempting to shoot himself.

Roni Keller. The incident happened in 2013. Opponent player Stefan Schnyder pushed Keller, causing him to fly headfirst into the side at high speed.

The resulting spinal injury was fatal.

Roni not only could not return to his sports career, he was forever paralyzed. In one day, his sports future and carefree life were crossed out.

Stefan Schnider was very worried about his guilt and even turned to a psychologist. In honor of Keller, his number 23 sweater hung on the bench for the rest of the Swiss Championship games.

Julissa Gomez. An American gymnast suffered a terrible injury during a vault in 1988: at a competition in Japan, she slipped on a springboard and crashed her head into a vault horse.

Julissa was completely paralyzed, her life was supported by resuscitation equipment.

A few days later, another misfortune happened in the hospital where the gymnast was taken: due to a technical malfunction, the artificial respiration apparatus to which Gomez was connected stopped working.

This led to serious brain disorders and a catatonic state. Julissa's family took care of her for three years. In 1991, in Houston, she died of an infectious disease at the age of 18.

Brian Clough. On December 26, 1962, the defender of the Bury club, Chris Harker, at full speed, crashed his shoulder into the knee of a football player, as a result of which he received a cruciate ligament rupture - at that time there was no worse injury.

“Almost for the first time in my life I lost my balance and hit my head on the ground,” Brian recalled later. I tried to get up, but I couldn't...

Clough nevertheless returned to the field in September 1964 in a match against Leeds and scored a goal in the first meeting. But he was only enough for three games, after which he decided to leave, became a coach, but at the same time suffered from alcoholism.

Billy Collins Jr. The 21-year-old American boxer was a successful and promising athlete. The fight with Luis Resto was supposed to be another passing fight for him on the way to stronger opponents.

Resto seized the initiative from the very beginning of the fight, Billy did not have time to recover from crushing blows, by the end of the fight he turned into a continuous bloody edema.

The victory was awarded to Resto (pictured), but Collins' father and part-time coach pointed out to the judges that the opponent's gloves were too thin, and demanded to re-check them.

To their horror, before the fight, the soft filler was deliberately removed from the front of Resto's gloves, and the boxing bandages were pre-soaked in a plaster solution: the effect of the blows that Collins missed was comparable to the blows of stones.

Luis Resto (pictured) and his coach went on trial for this act and subsequently went to jail. Collins, on the other hand, received serious facial injuries, primarily the eyes - a rupture of the iris and a fracture of the orbit.

This led to a significant deterioration in vision, and he was unable to return to professional boxing. The injury also affected the mental state of the athlete - he began to drink. Less than a year after the high-profile fight, Collins died in a car accident.

Sergey Pogiba. The winner of the World Cup in sports acrobatics in 1992, during the warm-up of the national championship, tried to perform the second exercise.

The athlete went to the screw-screw, but lost his orientation in the air and landed on his head instead of his legs. The ambulance immediately took him away.

Doctors made a terrible diagnosis - a fracture of the sixth cervical vertebra. It took a long time to recover after that. Sergei Pogiba was paralyzed, his lower body remains motionless.

Ronnie Zismer. On July 15, 2004, a misfortune happened to a German gymnast who claimed the medals of the 2004 Olympics: during training, the athlete fell and also injured his cervical vertebra.

As a result, the arms and legs of the gymnast were paralyzed. The accident happened while doing floor exercises when Ronnie was doing a double somersault.

In one of the best medical centers in Berlin, they made a disappointing diagnosis: according to the chief doctor of the clinic, Walter Szafartsik, "most likely Ronnie will never be able to move his paralyzed arms and legs."

Doctors' predictions came true - Ronnie Zismer is still chained to wheelchair, however, his hands are not paralyzed and he fights for every millimeter of movement.