Kubica’s hand injury and recovery

Kubica’s hand injury and recovery

As further details of Robert Kubica's condition emerge, it is becoming clear the injury to his right hand is the biggest concern. The Polish driver underwent seven hours of surgery to save his severed hand and although doctors said progress after the operation was “encouraging”, they added that it may be a week before they know if the procedure was a success.

Photos of the Skoda wreckage indicate that a guardrail penetrated the front of the car, and if that impact was strong enough to break Kubica’s right arm and leg, it was clearly strong enough to inflict lot of damage to his hand.

Anyone who has experienced a serious hand injury will tell you that it can be very debilitating. They occur in road accidents when passengers grab onto something for support in the moments before an impact. Broken hands are also very common in motorsport as the hands are rarely secured in a crash. Outside of Formula One, Jorge Lorenzo, Sebastian Loeb, Chad Reed and Jimmie Johnson (all champions in their respective categories) have experienced hand injuries in recent years.

Crush type injuries are not so common and that appears to be what Kubica has suffered.

One professional driver who recently endured crushed fingers was John Force, an American drag racer.

Force is a 15 times NHRA champion making him one of the most decorated drivers in the sport’s history. In 2007 he suffered a terrible accident that fractured his ankle, gashed open his right leg, dislocated his wrist, but also broke his fingers and lacerated his right hand.

John’s injuries are different to Robert Kubica’s so they don’t form a direct comparison, but it may be worth noting that he never regained full strength in his right hand. This is often the case when muscles in the hand are damaged and may prove true for Kubica.

Force was still able to drive and made a successful return from injury, but it took time to get back to full speed and he had to modify the handbrake controls of his dragster to suit. Kubica’s options in that regard may be limited.

Although there is a huge risk that Kubica’s right hand will never be as strong as it once was, he can take some encouragement from the latest developments in sports science. Rehabilitation techniques used to treat sports injuries have come a long way over the past decade, and this was evident in motorsport last year when Chris van der Drift suffered a massive accident in the Superleague championship.

Van der Drift clipped the back of a competitor whilst racing at Brands Hatch and vaulted at high speed into the barriers. The impact broke his ankle, ribs, and shoulder blade along with two fingers on his left hand. Again, the injuries do not directly compare with Kubica’s, but van der Drift’s recovery is a great example of the rehabilitation techniques available to modern drivers.

Chris used criotherapy and a hypoxic machine to aid his recovery. Criotherapy involves the application of very cold temperatures to body parts that narrow the blood vessels and increase cell metabolism. The hypoxic machine is a breathing device that alters the flow of oxygen and stimulates the development of red blood cells. Together, these saw Chris van der Drift back in a racing car within three months of his accident.

The same techniques may not be applicable in restoring full control to Kubica’s hand, but the key point is that medical technology is available today that simply wasn’t there ten or twenty years ago.

Robert Kubica had a terrible road accident in 2003 that disrupted his time in Formula Three, but he still won races with a metal rod in his arm so knows a thing or two about fighting back from a painful injury.

Here’s hoping Robert makes another swift recovery.

Posted by Martin Porter. - Follow him on twitter @mpondaweb.

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Last Comment Posted »

• Great to see some examples of big accidents, terrible injuries and successful comebacks Martin. I guess we'll know more within 2 weeks how serious...
  by Jimmy@enterF1
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