Pridmore Goes Under The Knife

Paul Carruthers | April 22, 2009

Jason Pridmore is hopeful of returning home tomorrow after undergoing surgery earlier this week on his broken left arm – the most severe of the injuries suffered in a high-speed crash in the pouring rain early on Sunday morning in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France.Pridmore suffered a broken ulna and radius bone in his left arm and also broke his left heel after crashing at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning at the Bugatti Circuit in France.”It’s a drag,” Pridmore said. “We were doing great in the race. We were in a battle right in the fourth through sixth-place range and we were getting ahead with our pit-stop strategy. It was 3 a.m. and it really started pouring hard. I was going under the Dunlop Bridge and I highsided. It was pretty miserable and I think eight bikes went down in that hour of racing. I ended up highsiding in front of the bike and I was fine until I hit the gravel trap. Then I started flipping and the bike chased me and it ended up catching my left heel. It’s just a drag. I had good teammates and it was going good for us.”Although doctors in France wanted to perform the surgery on Pridmore’s arm, the Californian opted to return home and have the surgery performed by noted Northern California surgeron Dr. Arthur Ting. “Flying home the 11 or 12 hours on Monday wasn’t a lot of fun, but I wanted to get to Ting’s,” Pridmore said.Pridmore was riding for the BK Maco Moto Racing team in France.