GRAND NATIONAL hero Davy Russell has opened up on the pain he went through in a horror fall that required bolts drilled into his head.
Russell, 41, who won the Aintree showpiece two years running on Tiger Roll, fell at the first in October’s Munster National at Limerick.
His mount Doctor Duffy, a 5-1 chance, collided with a rival and fell, sending Russell crashing to the ground head first.
The jockey said he had ‘dodged a bullet’ in the accident – but the recovery has proved just as brutal as the fall.
Russell himself has described it as ‘horrific’ and previously told the Irish Times how doctors ‘drilled bolts’ into his head, resulting in ‘woeful pain’.
The Cheltenham Gold Cup-winning rider now has to wear a huge neck brace permanently until he gets the OK from doctors to remove it.
And talking to RacingTV about the incident, he described the initial burst of pain as being like a ‘firework’ going off.
Speaking of his recovery and the fall, Russell said: “I’m trying to do as much walking and moving around as I possibly can without overdoing it.
“My T6 vertebrae was fractured. Thankfully, it broke backwards. If it had gone the other way I’d be in bother.
“They had to put that back in and stabilise it because it was an unstable fracture.
“That’s where the operation came in and they bolted – they put screws in that.
“The vertebrae below that was damaged as well and the T1 was dislocated. That’s the one they had to put me on the traction for.
“It [the fall] was a complete bang down from on the top of my head. I’d say I hit the ground square on with the top of my head.
“When I hit the ground it was like you set a firework off in my thumb and my index finger.
“It was just like a flash of pain out of those two fingers.”
Russell will not be able to ride again until the new year.
But in a funny twist of fate he previously revealed how this new injury had actually improved a previous one.
He said: “For the last ten years I’ve had to roll out of bed most mornings in pain with my hips.
“It was embarrassing for a couple of years in that I’d have to ride a bit longer than I normally would because I’d be in fierce pain.
“I had physio after physio and it was very good and effective but it would always return.
“But I’ve had no pain in my hips since they did the traction – so where there’s a negative, there’s a positive.”
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