A former champion in WWE has recalled being involved in a motorcycle accident while also being told by medical staff that was extremely lucky to be alive.
Back in 2014, Raymond Rowe of War Machine was seriously injured in a road accident and out of action until further notice. Signed with Ring of Honor at the time, the promotion issued an update stating that Rowe had severe bruising and lacerations, and had “sustained a broken arm that would require surgery and rehabilitation.”
Rowe was able to return to the ring and is currently signed to WWE as Erik of The War Raiders. While speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Erik first recalled how the accident happened:
“So in 2014 actually, just after War Machine started rolling. He [Ivar] and I spent 11 or 12 years each not making any money in wrestling, basically both giving up on making wrestling our career. We get offered Ring of Honor contracts. We start wrestling. Everything’s starting to go good.
Then like I had done every day for two years, I got on my motorcycle, went to the gym, left the gym on my way to get something to eat. A girl was texting at a stop sign, and she just pulled out right in front of my motorcycle. So I was going about 55 miles an hour, and she was maybe 30 feet in front of me.
I hadn’t even had the conscious decision to brake, whether I was going to try to brake and turn to miss her or lay my bike down, I just kind of said, Oh. I didn’t even get the full word out of my mouth, so I wasn’t even censoring myself, and I smashed into the back of her car.
So instead of hitting the hood, I had turned and jerked the wheel and I hit the back seat. So because I had torqued the handlebars like this, I broke my left thumb. I shattered everything above my left arm to my elbow to my shoulder. Then I went up over my handlebars. I punched out her rear window with my face, lacerated above my eye, broke my nose, but I didn’t break the cartilage. I broke the bone, the skull, hit my knee, and then I stood up, and my arm was like wiggling.
The girl comes out of the car, and she’s crying. She’s like, ‘Do you need me to call the ambulance?’ And I was like, Yes, please. Then the ambulance shows up and they pull up across the street or across the intersection.”
Erik then confirmed that he was still standing at this point and that the paramedics assumed that the crash had been fatal:
“Yeah, I was [still standing]. I had sat down at that point, and I just stood up off the off the curb, and I started walking to the ambulance. I remember that I saw the ambulance and the paramedic grabbed a body bag out of the back, because they just assumed from the call that I was dead. I walked over and there’s literally a body bag on the ground. I’m like full Walking Dead, right? Because my whole face is like gnarled up with blood and stuff.
The paramedic looks at me, and he’s like, ‘Sir, you’re not supposed to be walking.’ I’m sure I was in shock at this point, and I was like, ‘Do you want me to go sit back down?’ He said, ‘No, no, no, you’re already over here. I just want to stabilize your neck before you do anything else.’ I was like, okay. He’s like, ‘Unless you want to walk to the hospital.’ I was like, ‘How far is the hospital?’ He’s like, ‘Oh, it’s about three miles.’ And I was like, No, I’ll take the ride. I’m sure he was teasing me at that point, but I was in so much shock that I didn’t know what was going on.
Then everybody I talked to after that, the emergency room docs, the surgeon, all the doctors were basically like people don’t typically live, because I wasn’t wearing a helmet. We’ve talked back and forth on whether or not that actually saved my life or not, and I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t wear a helmet on a bike.
I’m just saying mine one in a million chance, because I hit the window with my head, and there’s a chance if I was wearing a helmet it would have been bigger, and I could have hit the cross guard over the top of the car, that might have snapped my neck. It might not have, I don’t know.”
“You Should Be Dead”: WWE Star Erik Miraculously Survived Serious Motorcycle Accident
Concluding, Erik stated that he was told by doctors that due to the severity of the accident, he should not have survived, adding that he would be unable to wrestle again. Thankfully, the WWE star was able to get back in the ring after 6 months and a lengthy surgery:
“I know that my dad has always told me that I give my guardian angel the hardest time, and I almost outran him that day. But, yeah, he was looking out. There was a reason that I survived that, and a reason that I was there.
So then the doctors were like, ‘Yeah, dude, you should be dead. You should have died in the physics of this accident, usually this is a fatal accident. There’s no way you’re going to wrestle again, your arm is completely shattered. It’s destroyed. Everything from the elbow to shoulder is just destroyed, you’re going to be lucky to lift weights.’
Six months later I was wrestling again. I had two plates, 18 pins and screws and, I don’t know, six or seven hour surgery, putting my arm back together.”
Also in the interview, Erik provided an update on Sarah Logan/Valhalla.
Additionally, Erik looked back on his infamous WWE NXT call-up and Vince McMahon’s idea behind it.
If you use any quotes from this article please credit the source and leave a h/t to ITR Wrestling.